Question for anyone doing the legal part at home

we went to city hall 3 days before we left for cabo. We asked them not to do vows or ring exchange, so they asked us 2 questioned signed some papers and that was it

My grandpa is not able to make it anymore (health issues) so the 3 of us went to City Hall last night. We did excahnge rings (for the day). No one else knows though. It was so quick it doesn't seem real.

Congrats! I think we are going to do the same thing with my Grandmother. She isn't able to travel to Mexico so we will take her with us to the City Hall. We are going to surprise her and pretend we are going to lunch! I can't wait!!

So are we able to ONLY sign paperwork and not actually say any vows, exchange rings, etc...? We don't even want to treat is as if it means anything until we actually exchange vows. We pretty much don't even want to talk about it with eachother, just so it doesn't feel real at all. Is there a good website that will tell me where there is a place near us that we can go to?

CrystalBall - I didn't see that anyone had answered your question of where to go yet! Where are you east of Toronto? I lived in Burlington for a long time and my family is all still around there!

I found a couple of websites that should hopefully give you the info you need.
The first is for the immediate Toronto area: City of Toronto: Registry services, Marriage licence requirements

The second is a basic FAQ document from the Ontario Government website: Ontario FAQ

And the third is using the link within the above pdf document (but navigated through a couple pages for you): Marriage Certificate and Ontario Marriage License Application


Overall, you should be able to go to any city hall in Ontario and obtain the necessary paperwork and information on who/where you can be married in the province. Hope that helps!!!

I love the idea of taking your grandparents!! Unfortunately mine are both unable to attend the wedding but they also live in another province so this likely won't be an option for us but what a treat for them!

We're doing the legal part in hush-hush after getting back from Mexico partly so that our guests don't feel cheated but also so that the first exposure to our marriage will be our ceremony in Mexico!! We'll probably just invite people if we need to bring our own witnesses but otherwise it will likely just be the two of us.

Good idea echo 2 62,

We were going to do it before...but why not after?

Well we had almost decided just to pay the extra fees and have it legalized in Mexico and all over...but now that I've found this forum and everything I can do I may want to save some bucks and just do it here in Calgary )

thanks for the great ideas!

Too many ideas not enough waking hours in the day to get through them!

Hey again Suzy... I have to make a few calls about getting the legal part done here in calgary - do you want me to message you about it when I get more details?

That would be great! Thanks so much!
If you need me to do anything just let me know!
You guys are all so great, thanks again )

For any Alberta brides on this thread - there isn't an option to do the legal requirements at city hall as some brides had mentioned doing in other provinces (like Ontario). I actually called the city to ask because I couldn't find anything on the city or provincial website, aside from a listing of marriage commissioners. So anyways, if you're doing the legal part in Calgary like we are, then hopefully that clears up some questions for you at least.

We did ours for tax and insurance purposes last December, a couple months after we got engaged, and are getting married on that date this year on "our one year anniversary"