HELP with getting legally married

Ok here is what I'm doing. I'm already legally married since Feb of this year. I am getting married in Jamaica in November. So I believe we are in similar situations. Since I am legally married my husband is able to put me on his insurance plan. (he did, I'm fully insured) I am not changing my name till later on so that my passport matches my ticket. You do not have to change your last name. On the marriage certificate it will state your maiden name. Also, I suggest you talk to your wedding coordinator about it too because it may reduce your wedding cost. For me since I am already married it will save us money on the legalities in Jamaica (not too sure about Mexico). Our wedding coordinator is giving us a renewal package which is the same thing as a regular wedding package minus all the legal paperwork. She is still treating it like a real wedding.

So how I see it is you have two options:

Option 1: get legally married - do not change your last name so you don't have to get a new passport/id/etc (less stress)

Option 2: get legally married - change your last name and change all your passport/id -- if you already purchased your airline ticket DO NOT change your last name. Your passport must match the name on your ticket.

I say go with option 1. You do not have to change your last name till later.

I hope I answered your question.

Man, I wish I would have read this thread before we bought our plane tickets. We wanted to do our legal marriage here in VA on Feb 3rd (our first date & the day he proposed) because I wanted to keep everything the same date. I didn't want to have the ceremony on a Tuesday in Mexico. But it makes pretty good sense to do it at home because we would be saving like $600 and we don't have to worry about all of the legal stuff down there. And I don't mind changing my last name when we get back. Question, did some of you ladies just go to the Justice of the Peace or did you do a whole ceremony? I don't mind people knowing we got "legally" married beforehand so I was thinking of just going to get married and have maybe 5 people at the most there and do like a lunch or dinner afterwards.

hmm we are considering getting married at home... what to do?? We are getting married at GBP Akumal and they do not Apostille the marriage license does anyone know what this really means?

Do you have to have your own witnesses at a court house wedding? Or will someone there witness?

Also, I thought there was an option to change your name at the time you get married. can you do this:

Go to courthouse & make it legal & pick the option to change your name, but wait on changing your passport.

Then fly to wedding & have a symbolic ceremony.

Come back & change passport & license?

I also lost my license a few weeks ago. I haven't figured out if I should get a new one now or just wait until I change my name. We will probably to the legal thing in a few weeks. Or do I need my license to get married legally? I have my passport. I do not think the license has to match the passport, because you do not need to show the license on the trip. It would be nice to avoid 2 back to back trips to the dmv! I can't believe I lost my license. I'm so responsible. I lost it the night of my bachelorette party. I know it has to be somewhere in a purse, or the pocket of something. I just havne't found it yet.

Mike was in charge of figuring out what we need to do for the legal ceremony, but I think I'm going ot have to do it.

They will probably charge you for a new license so I would only do it once. I paid like $25 for my new one.

I had to show ID when I got married. I would just call the county clerk to ensure they will take passport as ID. I'm sure they do, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I have two names right now- it gets super confusing btw.

This reminds me of a question I had for you ladies that have already done your "legal stuff" at home.

How minimal can you make the official marriage? I don't want it to feel like my real wedding, so I'd honestly just like to sign papers and be done with it. Do we have to recite vows or anything like that? Ideally, I'l like to bring my FI and I along with our 2 mothers to just sign and be done.

How was your experience?