Question for anyone doing the legal part at home

We're getting married in a church for our parents. We're doing this the weekend before we leave, but I didn't want to take away from the ceremony on the beach so we're keeping it really small, only our parents, not even our wedding party.

We're planning on our legal day when we return from Cabo at the City Hall in SF. They have this beautiful Rotunda. We're only asking our immediate family to attend

We are driving to Vegas about a month or so after the wedding with my MOH & her husband and our Best Man and his girlfriend and we're doing a little white chapel legal ceremony maybe by Elvis?

I want FI to wear a cheesy suit and we'll take ridiculous pictures, I'm so stoked about the Vegas wedding it's ridiculous!

I love the Vegas idea!!! KittenHeart you get best of both worlds, a DW wedding and a cheesy Vegas one, I love it!!!

We are having a secret legal cermony within the next few months at city hall and then planning a symbolic destination wedding for early 2010. Because we live in different countries FI(American) we want to get the immigration process started now--instead of waiting until after our wedding. For the legal city hall wedding it will just be the two of us.

so glad i found this tread, so can someone please clear this up for me. We are planning a small affair for family before our vegas wedding, so when i am searching for venues and pricing am i looking for "vow renewal ceremonies". I am so sorry I really know nothing about planning weddings!!

Hi Puzzled Bride,

A friend of a friend got legally married in Mexico a few years back. They ended up getting a divorce later, which ended up taking years and costing tons of money because of the ties to mexico. Not that any of us are thinking of crappy circumstances like that at this point, that is one of the downfalls of getting married out of your home country. There are other reasons, such as not having to get your certificates notarized or translated when you come back, and also, renewal of vows are a lot cheaper usually! As my wedding coordinator explained it to me, the whole ceremony looks exactly the same except when people would normally sign the marriage certificate, we sign some piece of paper that has no legal value. Also the wedding isn't performed by someone who is recognized by law to marry people (not sure what they're called). These two little differences are saving us about $1000 - the diff between a legal wedding ceremony and a renewal of vows ceremony at the place where I'm having my wedding.

Of course there are benefits to having a legal wedding at your destination - its real and you don't have to "pretend" to get married, and so on. Everyone has their own opinion. I hope that helps

Glad I found this thread. After hearing some issues with the Marriage certificate and getting your name changed, or having to translate it (which can be pricey) I am now thinking of the idea of doing it 'legal' here before we leave. I think it would be totally hush hush too. But this may sound stupid, but I have no clue where we can legally have this done?! I live just a little east of Toronto. Can anyone be of some help?!

Thanks!

Hi!

I actually did my legal day in Vancouver. We went out to the park at Kits Beach...beautiful backdrop! Then went to dinner at the sandbar on granville island. It was perfect!

We plan on heading down to City Hall here in Calgary with our MOH and best man and having a very un-romantic legal ceremony. We want it to have no significance to us since our "real" wedding will be the one we have in Mexico. This will just be about the paper work.