Civil "at home" ceremony

[cancunbride2be]

Hello!

This question is for all you ladies that got the legal stuff done at home before/after the DW. What is the ceremony like? Do you need to say "I dos" and all that. The Fi and I are getting legally hitched here in Jersey at the courthouse, before the DW and we are hoping to not have all the I do stuff. Only because we want to save that for the DW ceremony and have it be special. Obviously we dont have a choice but I was hoping you could all let me know what to expect when we go (in two weeks!!)

 

Thanks!

[cheese_diva]

Sorry..you have to do the I do stuff to make it legal...lol.. it's not that bad.. I cried during the swearing in.... it was really sweet.. my man cried and made it more real than I ever thought it would be. It was great.. we'll still remember our real wedding as our mexico celebration but our courthouse ceremony was still great.

[newfiebride]

I was worried about that too. That doing the ceremony here before we go would take away the specialness of the DW ceremony. The FH is still not 100% about doing the civil before we go but I think we will to save a lot of hassle, time and money.

[CarrieRN]

We decided (aka I finally convinced him) to do a JP wedding here a few weeks before we go to Mexico just to save time, hassle and money. We are going to try and keep it low key since we want to sonsider our Mexico wedding our real one...I'll probably cry at both. I did get hassle from my stepmom (wtf) about it. She wanted to know why I didn't just save money and have the whole thing at home. That doesn't save me any money. Felt like telling her that she didn't have to come to the Mexico wedding. But I controlled it. So anyway...we are only telling immediate family and the only people who we really want there (unless they feel super strongly about missing it) are FI's aunts who can't come to the DW. I'm sure FI's mom will want to be there too. I just don't want a big fuss made over it. We'll see how it goes.

[cancunbride2be]

Wow...you are inviting alot of people compared to us! We are only having our Best man/ Maid of Honor. We didn't want to invite people and make it a big thing because we want the actual wedding to be when people think of us as "officially" married.

[LisaG]

We did the whole JP thing the day before we left, with my mom and his mom and dad. Then we went to lunch afterwards. We didn't make a huge deal out of it, but it was still special. You could always wait until you get back to do the legal one at the JP...

[CarrieRN]

I will have to think about the idea of doing it when we come back home. I will have to discuss with FI and see what he thinks. Then my stepmom won't be all critical/crabby about stuff she shouldn't even care about because she will be seeing our first ceremony which will be the religious ceremony. I wanted to just go and get it done without having anybody there but when Dave talked to his mom she liked the idea so that her sisters could see us get married since they won't be able to go to Mexico. My parents probably will not come to the JP portion. Wonder if we need to be married prior to going to get the honeymoon specials or the religious ceremony there will count for enough?

[tina.scott32]

This is a great question! I was wondering the same thing.

[LisaG]

I think you can get the honeymoon specials anyway. You won't walk away with your marriage cert. You will have to wait awhile to get it in the mail. Just tell them you already got legally married.

[foxytv]

We are having a friend who is a Notary witness us sign the paperwork a few days before we leave for DW. She will file everything for us while we are gone. As minimal as possible is what we are doing.