Non-Legal Marriages-when are you making it legal?

Update! We decided last night to do the Symbolic Ceremony...what a relief to have finally agreed upon this!

 

We are considering the Mexican ceremony as our actual/real wedding and anniversary date and we will "file the paper work" when we arrive home. We are not going to tell anyone.

 

I am grateful to all who have posted here...you helped us make an important decision with your points of view...thank you!

There are reasons for getting the legal work in Mexico or getting the legal work at home...

 

here is the deal if you do the legal marriage in mexico:

 

1. you will have to go and get blood test, make sure you and your witnesses have the proper identification and copie of this, mexico loves their copies.

2. your marriage license will be in spanish, there is not an option for english or any other language for that matter. When you arrive home you will have to get a legal translation of the marriage license for the name change process.

3. the ceremony, depending on who officiates, should have the option of english and spanish. when ever my friends have been married and used the Civil service the justice of the peace did speak english, it was not perfect english but he could do the ceremony in english.

4. Hopefully you can do all of this in your hotel instead of having to go to the civil office in playa del carmen. YOu will need three days in advance to do the paperwork so that it is arranged for your wedding date. 3 working days.

 

The option of getting married legally at home is a good one if you dont want the hassle of the above options. But if you want a true mexican wedding then get it done, knowing what you ahve to do when you get home.

 

The mexican legal document is fun and not that difficult to do. It is just the after effects when you get home. also most wedding planners fed ex the license to you about a month after which can be a pain as well.

 

have fun with the planning.

We planned to have our legal day before we left for Mexico but with all the snow days we had this year we will be doing it shortly after we get back. We are having FI's grandparents and my grandma as our witnesses since they aren't traveling to Mexico. We figured we will go out for a nice lunch after.

I a getting the legal stuff done here in florida, it just seemed to me to be less stressful to do it that way.

It's important to FH that our wedding day be the day we make our commitment to each other for the first time before God...which means in a reverent and spiritual fashion. He doesn't want the first time we speak vows to be in front of "some schmuck judge". lol So, we'll be counting the symbolic ceremony in Mexico as our true wedding/anniversary date and then we'll square it in the eyes of the government when we get back stateside, probably the day after our return.

We have a friend who is a Notary and she did the paperwork for us before we left. April 13 was significant for us, but that date wasn't available for our DW, so we did our legal paperwork on that day - but still had our friend submit the paperwork on our DW day of April 19 so that is the date on file with the courthouse.

 

We did the legal stuff ahead of time for a few reasons - one being that the paperwork from the DR takes up to 6-months to receieve back in the US ... yet we only have 30-days from our wedding date to change insurance, etc. Also, we felt it better to do ahead of time rather than after just in case anything happened while we were traveling. Morbid, perhaps, but you really never know...

We also plan on doing the legal ceremony in Michigan 4 days before heading to Mexico. I really like the idea you had in including your grandparents. My grandmother is the only grandparent we both have left and she is unable to go to Mexico. So, I think I'm going to convince my FI to let her be one of our witnesses.

We are keeping the "Legal" part a secret unless someone asks then we will tell them we had to do legal paperwork before heading to Mexico and leaving it at that! We will still celebrate our symbolic wedding day as our Anniversary.

Good Luck Brides-to-be!!!

~ Erica

most everyone is doing the legal stuff before, huh? is anyone else doing it after you get back home like us? i just really want that walk down the isle "un-christened" feeling. it wouldn't feel as special to me if i knew i was already married in the back of my head.

We are planning to do it after we get back home as well.

We're deciding to do it before because of the date. We are planning to do the legal part on the anniversary of when we first started dating and having the ceremony a couple of months later. we'll technically be married for a good 2 months before but no one except my parents will know. the things we do for love... LOL