To ask for help with a ski wedding

[Bodear]

Just posting here for traffic.

My boyfriend and I are getting married and really like the idea of a ski wedding. There will be both skiers and non-skiers on the guest list and I wondered if the collective wisdom of mn could give me any advice or tips.

Thanks in advance :-)

It sounds great if you love skiing but any event where I'd be labelled as a 'non-something' tends to put my back up from the start. I just wouldn't go, to be honest. You say you're expecting no-shows, but are you sure you don't mind a section of your family, or friends who can't afford a ski holiday, not turning up? And what about the non-skiiers left twiddling their thumbs in a bloody gift shop while you're all on the slopes?

A ski honeymoon, with a small gang of ski buddies would be amazing, though.

Where is there a ski resort ( by definition at the top of a mountain) that is only 3O minutes drive from an airport?

As a non skiier if I was invited to a close family wedding where accommodation was all sorted and paid then would probably be able to pay the flights if given a lot of notice. Would definitely expect accommodation and one activity to be paid for though - otherwise you're asking people to spend an expensive holiday.

Do check carefully what the legal requirements are for marriage in any country you are considering - and whether a hotel's billed 'ceremony' is actually a legal marriage or choices of add-on ceremony (expecting the legal marriage to have taken place according to that nation's laws).

France has strict residency rules for marriage there, and I'd be quite surprised if there was an exception for ski resorts. But a hotel might be able to help with information on how (and where) to marry legally in their country as well as arranging any ceremony on their premises.

I got married in Kitzbuhel in Austria & it was beautiful. We picked Kitzbuhel as it is big enough for non-skiers to find stuff to do to entertain themselves, plus has a good train service to other interesting places. You can also go up the mountain in the cable car & have lunch up there as a pedestrian.

We had about 40 people at our wedding, roughly half skiers/boarders & half non-skiers.

You can have a civil service in the town hall (Rathaus) in Austria which is usually pretty, but church weddings are tricky as the majority of Austria is Catholic & they wouldn't let us get married in church as we weren't Catholic. Found a non-Catholic church who would do a blessing, but was a bit of a faff!

Obviously I'm biased but I thought it was lovely. You don't have any of the worry of "will it be sunny" that you get with a uk wedding, and I found that because a lot of detail was taken out of my hands it was actually much easier. Plus it really wasn't that expensive.

Please PM me if you'd like to talk in more detail.

Lelloteddy Crozet (monts Jura in the the French Jura) is a small ski resort less than 30 mins from Geneva airport. So they do exist. La colle de la Faucile in the same area is a little further - maybe 40 mins. Not much for non skiers to do though.

For those that have had a separate legal ceremony and then a later celebration or blessing, did it make it less special?

I think that really depends on what the B&G* arrange to 'replace' that part of the day. I've been to a fair few weddings where the couple had been legally married before the celebration, and for some of them I really did feel that I had been a witness to their comittment IYSWIM. This meant having someone officiate who knew the couple, a well-structured ceremony that had meaning behind it, heartfelt declarations and (short) appropriate readings. I've also definitely been to ones that didn't feel like a wedding.

Whatever you do, don't:
a) Tell everyone your wedding is taking place abroad, and make everyone feel that, if they don't fly out, they will miss your big day, promising that the actual legal marriage will be 'just a piece of paper'.
b) Decide closer to the time that actually, it will be a bit miserable just to rock up to a registry office in your jeans, so arrange a much more informal day out for everyone who can't make it to the ceremony.
c) Everyone who comes to the legal bit ends up having a really brilliant, relaxed day where you all go to the pub, everyone has a whale of a time, makes fond, off-the-cuff speeches and feels like they've been to a wedding
d) Two weeks later, everyone who's scrimped and saved to fly to your bastard destination wedding (and hence didn't come to the brilliant informal pub day) feels miffed and poor. They;d rather have come to the first ceremony, but here they are, watching you not-actually-get-married for several hundred quid more than everyone else. Later, the B&G muse to each other that "actually, the legal bit was the point where we actually felt married, y'know?"

Can you tell I speak from bitter experience?

*Or B&B or G&G

Plus it really wasn't that expensive

Not for you, but you transferred a huge proportion of the wedding costs onto your guests (flights, accommodation, holiday).

Ha ha that sounds like a disaster tigermoll!

I wouldn't go, as a non skier, but then I wouldn't go to any wedding abroad either. Too much time and money for an event which simply isn't that important to be, to be blunt. If your friends are skiers though and have lots of holiday allowance and spare money you might be ok. You say not many kids, so if you're late twenties then people are probably more inclined to indulge you as they are more at the "brilliant, let's go there for the weekend, it'll be an adventure" stage than a late 30s crowd with kids, mortgages and just less inclination to put themselves out (this might just be me of course!)

If your family don't ski though, I'd think carefully about that. As PP have said I'd also be careful on the 'loads for non skiers to do'. What, exactly? And is it suitable for the specific non skiers? And yes, as another PP said anything where you're already classed as in the 'wrong camp' before it even starts can have a certain tone, if you're not very careful.

Too many carefuls. Must be my fear of skiing coming out!

As long as you are happy to accept that it could literally just be you and your husband, then cracking on. We've often talked about a family ski holiday but wouldn't do it for someone's wedding, we'd want to choose the most suitable time and place for our family.

As you'll have to get married in the UK for legal purposes, could you not just have a ski honeymoon and say that friends and family are welcome to join you?

Being a non skier in a ski resort for a week is very expensive. If it's an Austrian village where the resort if accessed by a cable car (most are) then they tend to be very quiet during the day!

Honestly, I like skiing but I wouldn't come.

Can't you just have an amazing ski honeymoon and maybe a blessing somewhere just for the two of you?

Ha ha, tigermoll, I know what you mean.

The people I know who got married in an Austrian ski resort only had their close families to the registry office bit. Yes, it would have been really annoying if they'd done it the way you describe.

There are various ice grottoes you can hire but do bear in mind these are often accessible only in good weather and guests would need to be well prepared for the bitter cold and icy conditions which is extra expense.

Talking about being prepared, wouldn't the non skiers have to buy suitable clothes for the weather conditions? This doesn't come cheap either.

Seefeld in Tirol is only 22 Km from Innsbruck airport.

Exactly nickname.

Have you thought about Lapland - saariselka or somewhere like that?
Skiing is basic but adequate and everything is really close together. There's lots to do for the inside for kids such as play centres and huge family pool at the holiday club. There's also reindeer sleigh rides, husky rides, snowmobils etc and a very good chance of seeing the northern lights.
Very expensive November to early January due to the Santa trips but reasonable mid January through to match and snow pretty much guaranteed. Know they do weddings as saw it advertised in one of the brochures

March that should say - not match!

(Have just googled Lapland weddings and seen some beautiful wedding pictures of couples in sleighs etc.)

France has strict residency rules
I think it's 40 days. Which us why no one pops over to Paris to get married with photos under the Eiffel tower.

We've been to a few weddings aboard but declined an invite to a wedding in a ski resort.
It was a fortnight after Christmas. Kids weren't invited and were back at school anyway. I'd have had to have them minded, dropped to and collected from school while we were away. It was costing a lot in comparison to weddings in Spain/Portugal. And getting there would have been a faff, we'd either have needed two flights and a train or one flight, a long train trip and a bus.
Just giving some reasons why you may have people not coming, it's the only wedding abroad we were invited to and didn't attend.

fassone you were invited to a wedding abroad but your kids weren't included?

France has strict residency rules

I think it's 40 days

It is. Paris is my favourite city and we had hoped to get married there but it's a laborious process with lots of red tape and DH said no to getting legally married here first, as the ceremony in Paris would be 'like playing pretend'