Where do I start if I want to get married abroad?

[bumblebubble23]

I’m not the best at planning at all. We've been looking at wedding destinations, maybe Italy.
Absolutely no idea where I start, any advice appreciated.

First thing is to search for a wedding planner in the area you are interested in getting married- we got married in Corfu and our planner was amazing- from helping us what to do in the UK first, to suggestions on the island for the actual wedding including venues, food, photographers, florists and dealt with all the paperwork etc etc - that was 11 years ago and we still go back now at least once a year and always make time to catch up with her!

A friend of mine got married in Sicily and used an Italian planner - I can find out the details if you are interested

Thank for your reply, it’s the paper work I’m most worried about. How did you go about invites ? I’d want to ask family a few friends but then don’t want t to offend if anybody can’t afford it etc

Places like Tui have their own wedding teams and they can help you with it all. I think we used first choice 24 years ago!
There is legal paperwork that needs to be done in UK first but it’s not hard. We didn’t invite anyone 🤪

Planet holidays was great but I got married in Cyprus. Some places like France and Italy are not so easy.

Friends got married in Italy with kuoni

Just use a proper wedding travel agent

You can easily get married in Gibraltar without the need for lots of paperwork. But probably not as pretty as other destination options.

Contact your local council to find out how you have to ‘give notice’ before getting married- this will depend on where you are in the UK - if you do decide to get married abroad a good wedding planner will run through all this with you.

We got married in Italy and booked the wedding package through a travel agent. We sent out a message to all family and friends with the date and that we would love them to join us but absolutely understood if they couldn't / didn't want to.

This gov.uk website has useful information about the legal side of getting married abroad, depending on which country and your personal circumstances.

https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships-abroad

Do you speak any languages? I speak French and got married in France without a wedding planner. Organised it all myself. If you don't speak the language of the country you will need help. Don't think about invites before you've thought about where to go and found out if it's possible and how to go about it in that place.

I got married just before sunset on a beach in Turkey. It was the most perfect day and all organised by the TUI Wedding Planner who was amazing.

We got married in New York. Very easy. You need to register with you passport/birth certificate a minimum of 48hrs before then turn up on the day you choose and wait your turn.
some where big white weddings, others like us were a couple and a photographer/witness off the street.

you then need an extra bit of paperwork after to register it in the UK. Don’t have to get that the same day though, as long as you do it before flying back .

No need to register foreign marriages in England or Wales. In fact, there is no facility to register or record anything about your foreign marriages here. Show up at a register office waving your US marriage certificate and the registrars will be totally uninterested.
If you are legally married abroad then that marriage counts without you needing to take further action here. If it wasn't a legal marriage in the country where you had the ceremony, then you probably aren't married here either.

This is a very useful site to start understanding the legalities.

https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships-abroad

You don't need to register it in the UK, you do need an Apostille document for future use for visas and so on. This is an extra document that requires a different office and a small fee. Optional but I'd recommend it

Apostilles are usually obtained in the country where the document originates.

Either way, definitely worth obtaining additional copies of your foreign marriage certificate while you are there.

Are you allowed to say who that was as we're really keen on Corfu.

@TitasaducksarseSorry just saw your question- we used Anne Kantas - https://awesomecorfu.com/weddings/

@Titasaducksarse
Anne can sort you out a full ceremony, restaurant, hotels etc if need be however we wanted as simple as possible and that wasn’t an issue- no pushing for extras. We had a simple registry wedding in the town hall and was back there again 2 years ago for friends wedding and it was unexpectedly poignant 😻