Symbolic wedding or Legal wedding????

[*tinkertoy*]

were also doing symbolic, and the courthouse here before. I don't want to have to mess with all the translating and FI is from Germany so that is another issue with translation...plus blood work in Mexico -- ICK!

[jszy10]

At first when I heard about doing this...I thought "no way, I could never do that!"...but the more I think about it, the more I think I might want to go the symbolic route!  It will save us $300, plus we won't have to do anything but plan our wedding when we get down there.  We are still planning on going a few days before, but I think I'd really love to have that stuff out of the way!?  Thanks for all the feedback ladies. Now I just want to make sure that the symbolic wedding at my resort still looks and sounds just like a real one!

[lyndsay_h]

It will save you money to do the legal part here, especially the cost of notarizing and translating everything...so if that's your biggest concern it might be easier.  For us I feel like it'd be cheating our guests...like why are they going all that way if we're already married.  But that's just me being silly!

[ambularose]

I think for us it will be alot easier for us to get married here. It's a personal decision though. Not only will it save us money for the fees to do it. We will save money in taxes, as stupid as that sounds. It's important to us. We are telling some and not others though. We think a symbolic wedding is just as or more important anyways.

[jszy10]

Originally Posted by lyndsay_h 

 

It will save you money to do the legal part here, especially the cost of notarizing and translating everything...so if that's your biggest concern it might be easier.  For us I feel like it'd be cheating our guests...like why are they going all that way if we're already married.  But that's just me being silly!

 

I feel that way too sort of -- which is why I'm not sure how I feel about doing it.  I know my FI isn't completely sold on the idea, because he doesn't know about "getting married" before we are supposed to 'get married'.  We have some time to discuss it, so we'll see. I'm a little torn at the moment.

 

[richarsd]

My fiance and I debated on this issue for months and unfortunately it's not one of those "compromisable issues", lol. In the beginning, I was dead set against doing a civil ceremony down there - I thought the whole document translation would be a headache and it's slightly cheaper to go symbolic (although yes, you DO still have to pay to get married at the court house or wherever at home first). Also, I wasn't keen on the idea of the ceremony being down in Spanish with the English translator alongside. My FI, however, could not fathom the thought of getting married here first legally (and not really telling anyone) and thought it would take away from our special day down South. So we both thought about it and we manged to find a spectacular TA who specializes in destination weddings who send all our documents off for us to be translated...in the end, we're going with the legal ceremony. And I think I really like the idea of the wedding being down in Spanish by the judge...gives it more of an island flare So there are pros and cons to both...guess that's why the offer both options! Goodluck!

[MsClarke724]

I've been debating about this also, but I don't feel like it would be the same for me to already be legally married upon arriving to the DR.  I want that beautiful tropical ceremony to be my real wedding day.  So for me, it is worth the trouble and extra cash

[fmichelle]

This is actually a second marriage for me, and the first time, since he was from another country and he had to get the green card paperwork started, we did a courthouse marriage about five months before our actual wedding. I have to say that the wedding was fun and all, but it lacked that "specialness" of "oooh, I'm getting married today" flair.  Of course, we had already been living together as husband and wife for all those months, I had already changed me name, etc. But still, I just looked forward to it as a party that I got to share with everyone, and there were no butterflies.

 

This time, however, I have been absolutely certain with my FI (in more ways than one, of course) that I want to get married the moment we say "I do." The benefit of being a second marriage is that we can do whatever kind of wedding we want, hence the DW. So we're pulling out all the stops and making it completely personal to us. Since the judge in Punta Cana doesn't perform all the legal ceremonies (my WC said he would just show up to sign paperwork), a friend of ours is performing the ceremony, we're writing our own vows, and we're going to incorporate as many or as few wedding traditions as we want. We also felt like we would be cheating our guests as well.

 

We also like the fact that we're going to have a Spanish and English marriage license (in addition to the Kattubah in Hebrew).

[FutureMrsTO]

we did a symbolic ceremony and got married here in NYC the day before we left.  We didnt make a big deal out of the NYC ceremony, not even dressing up /exchanging rings/vows and treated the Punta Cana ceremony as our actual wedding.

 

We used Pastor Rick York (on other BDW bride's recommendations) He was FANTASTIC!! He does a full english ceremony and his fee is mimmal.

if you search him on BDW you will find nothing but amazing reviews! No one was any the wiser that it wasn't a legal ceremony (as he had us sign a marriage certificate during the ceremony) and it left the huge cost and worry about the legal paperwork at home.  If anyone is interested in his contact pls let me know!

[Aumuller]

Does Pastor Rick do legal ceremonies as well or only symoblic?

 

I really want to do a legal ceremony down there but I would prefer it to be in English and I have heard amazing things about Pastor Rick as well.

 

Originally Posted by FutureMrsTO 

we did a symbolic ceremony and got married here in NYC the day before we left.  We didnt make a big deal out of the NYC ceremony, not even dressing up /exchanging rings/vows and treated the Punta Cana ceremony as our actual wedding.

 

We used Pastor Rick York (on other BDW bride's recommendations) He was FANTASTIC!! He does a full english ceremony and his fee is mimmal.

if you search him on BDW you will find nothing but amazing reviews! No one was any the wiser that it wasn't a legal ceremony (as he had us sign a marriage certificate during the ceremony) and it left the huge cost and worry about the legal paperwork at home.  If anyone is interested in his contact pls let me know!