Legal Ceremony Vent / Questions

[Bride010101]

From the beginning we planned on doing a small legal ceremony at the courthouse before heading to Jamaica. (Mostly to avoid any later issues with Sean's immigration process)

 

We have been open with everyone about it and both of our parents are supportive of the idea. We figured we would do it whenever we found some time before we leave for Jamaica. Probably at the end of December. Like many couples, we will consider our Jamaica wedding to be our real wedding and were considering the legal ceremony as more the paperwork portion. So I wanted to keep it small and just have my parents or 2 of our close friends come to be witnesses.

 

Well Sean got off the phone with his parents the other day and they announced that they were going to come to the States to witness our legal ceremony and "make a weekend out of it."

 

The making a weekend of it doesn't really fit into my whole idea of keeping it small. However, my FI is pretty excited because his parents haven't actually came to the States for a couple of years now (we generally just go to toronto to visit) Plus since our plans to go visit this May fell through he won't see them for like a year.

 

I know they want to see their son, but it just doesn't make much sense to me to come visit in the end of December... when we will see them the first week of January for the wedding.

 

But after talking it over with Sean and then my mom, I've come to terms of making a weekend out of it and going with the flow. It really isn't that big of a deal and it is important to my FI. Plus it will give our parents another chance to get to know eachother before the wedding.

 

So now I need to find a date for the legal ceremony so they can start planning accordingly. Unfortuantely we dont get done with rotations until December 19th and we plan to leave for Jamaica on December 31st, so there really isn't that many options.

 

I beleive MN requires a 5 day (not includign weekends, holidays) wait period from the time of application to when the license is issued. So we will probably need to apply for that ahead of time. I am just concerned with the fact our legal ceremony time will fall between the Christmas and New Year holidays... so not sure what type of options will be available. I tried calling the court house last Friday but kept getting transferred to a girl who knew absolutely nothing. I will try again this week but I guess does anyone know...

 

How early do we need to (or can we) call and reserve a legal ceremony time through the court house?

Are there other options than a justice of the peace at the court house to go through?

 

 

K... sorry that was really long... but it was really nice to vent a little. I know in the grand scheme its not that big of deal and we have plenty of time... it just frustrated me because it is something I know have to plan and think out... rather than just do to get it done.

[CourtneyV]

Would you consider getting legally married much earlier than that?? Could you somehow work that into the plans... especially since you were going to go visit them in May anyways.

[ACDCDCAC]

I was going to suggest the same as Court, esp. since you are really considering that it's just the paperwork part. Maybe do it late October or early Nov (if rotations can be planned around, not sure how that works?), a bit of business to tend to out of the way of wedding and holiday stress.

[Maura]

ok becky... i hate to say it but for once i am not on your side re:keeping it small. you can't deny his parents the opportunity to come see their son legally married, because even though you dont consider it your real wedding, it IS real. and it is real to your parents and his parents. so it wouldnt be fair to have your parents there and not his. i didnt want to make a big deal of our legal thing either, we are doing it one full month in advance of our DW. but jose's parents really really wanted to be here for the legal one. theyre flying in on a friday and out on a sunday, and coming all the way from mx city to do it. when you get married, you suddenly have this other family to call your own too. you have to do it fairly. just make the best of it and do a nice dinner afterward. you could even do what i'm doing and not do it at the courthouse, find a JP to come to you, go do it in a public garden or somewhere cool and have a friend or two there to take all the pics. it still keeps it small. just remember the parents just want to share in your joy.

 

as for the dilemma of the time frame, i suggest you do it before december. its going to be a clusterfuck trying to get anything legal done around the holidays. why not avoid it if you can? if its just paperwork to you like you say, then it doesnt really matter when you actually do it, right?

[Bride010101]

I had thought about it... but I guess we really don't know 100% what we will be walking in to with rotations. They pretty much go non-stop and for the most part will be like a real job, M-F 40 hours a week.

 

We will both be in Duluth this summer for them. But in the Fall I will be in the Twin Cities and Sean will be in Rochester which makes it a bit trickier.

 

We also don't really have any set breaks between then and now. With how this current semester fell.. we didn't get the customary week off between finals and the start of rotations. Which is what we had been counting on to go to Toronto. Now Sean has finals through May 15th then my sis graduates from college in Wisconsin on the 17th and we start rotations the 19th. So May is kind of out.

 

The only other break I know of is Thanksgiving... but I am concerned what type of hours they would hold then. I can't for the life of me find their regular horus or holiday hours... but I would think they are closed weekends and holidays.

[Bride010101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maura ok becky... i hate to say it but for once i am not on your side re:keeping it small. you can't deny his parents the opportunity to come see their son legally married, because even though you dont consider it your real wedding, it IS real. and it is real to your parents and his parents. so it wouldnt be fair to have your parents there and not his. i didnt want to make a big deal of our legal thing either, we are doing it one full month in advance of our DW. but jose's parents really really wanted to be here for the legal one. theyre flying in on a friday and out on a sunday, and coming all the way from mx city to do it. when you get married, you suddenly have this other family to call your own too. you have to do it fairly. just make the best of it and do a nice dinner afterward. you could even do what i'm doing and not do it at the courthouse, find a JP to come to you, go do it in a public garden or somewhere cool and have a friend or two there to take all the pics. it still keeps it small. just remember the parents just want to share in your joy. as for the dilemma of the time frame, i suggest you do it before december. its going to be a clusterfuck trying to get anything legal done around the holidays. why not avoid it if you can? if its just paperwork to you like you say, then it doesnt really matter when you actually do it, right?

Thanks for your honesty... but yes I came to realize I was unfair in my original thoughts. So I have come to terms with them coming, and am honestly happy to see them.

I love the idea of doing it outside of the courthouse since we are making a deal of it anyways. How did you find one that did it? Did you still go through the courthouse?

As for the time... I honestly don't care when we do it. That wasn't so important to me. We actually had thought about doing it now just to speed up the citizenship stuff or possibly get him instate tuition for our last year of school.

Due to multiple reasons we decided to wait on the citizenship stuff so we decided to wait for the wedding. I guess one of the main reasons to wait is because it allows me to remain on my parents insurance (medical, dental, eye and car). Once I get married they boot me off and I would have to purchase insurance through our school.

I guess in addition to having a few free weeks in December, the insurance reason was why we were waiting until then.

It wasn't until his parents mentioned coming and me trying to choose a date did I realize how messy December gets with holidays and what not.

[Maura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeckyN Thanks for your honesty... but yes I came to realize I was unfair in my original thoughts. So I have come to terms with them coming, and am honestly happy to see them. I love the idea of doing it outside of the courthouse since we are making a deal of it anyways. How did you find one that did it? Did you still go through the courthouse?

we happened to have a good friend who was a professor of ours in grad school who was ordained online (yes this is totally legal, you know me -- i had my lawyers triple check this was ok to do) by the universal life church and can legally officiate marriages in the state of illinois. its really easy to do and just about anybody can do it. you dont have to do anything through the courthouse -- you just need to follow whatever the law says there about how many days beforehand you can get your marriage license (usually both bride and groom have to be present and in some states like illinois, the fee must be paid in cash), get your marriage license, it will say you have how ever many days to get the certificate signed (usually anywhere from 30-90 days), then your officiant signs the certificate and you send it to your county/courthouse or wherever you are required to send it. really simple actually!