Marrying before the actual DW ceremony?

Noone needs to know you did it beforehand.

We were married 1/20/09 (Inauguration Day!) for our 03/07/09 wedding because:

1- It was cheaper

2- We didn't have to have blood drawn

3- No visits to a Dr.

4- It made sense

My fiance and I are getting married in the states the Saturday before our wedding in the DR. We are having it at our apartment in front of close friends and family.

Either way you do it it will be beautiful!

My fiance and I are also getting married in the states about 2 weeks before our Riviera Maya wedding. Our travel agent advised us that it's the best choice and it makes all the paperwork so much easier. We initially made the decision to have a private ceremony in the states because our grandparents are not able to travel to Mexico with us. We thought that they would appreciate to be involved and attend a private ceremony with just the grandparents and the parents. My fiance and I joke that the legal service is our trial marriage

Ditto, on the hassle free. You dont want any surprises- that's what FI and I are planning.

Thanks for the updates! I am totally on the fence about this too! Well we have a a year to decide or a couple months i guess! lol

I think we might just get married on our anniversary and just have the ceremony in the DR for our family and not tell them so no one feels cheated hehehe

We did it! I can't even remember the date but it was about a month before our wedding in Mexico.

NO ONE knows about it. We found some witnesses in the lobby of the courthouse (a bunch of nurse students). It was a lot of fun.

In Mexico, our planner and the minister knew. They provided us with a document during the ceremony that we and our wedding party signed.

I feel a little guilty in a way, but as long as no one finds out I'm sure it'll be fine. Even if they do eventually, it's all done now and our wedding in Mexico was amazing. Everyone's still talking about it!

We did it for the following reasons:

- wanted to save on bloodwork and hassle of translating documents (about $700)

- we really wanted an English ceremony we chose. If we'd done the legal down in Mexico, it would have been a Spanish legal ceremony, which we really didn't like. The English one we wrote was very meaningful to us.