Wedding abroad - complete novice!

[mostimportantaspect]

My DP has proposed and I am so happy!

We have large complex extended families and our instinct is a v low low key warm (European?) destination wedding with JUST us and our children, no one else. DC range between 9-22.

We have no idea where to start, or where to choose. Has anyone got any advice? I am leaning towards Italy.

How easy is it to get married in Europe?
Is it expensive?
where do I look?

thank you

Denmark is meant to be v good for weddings abroad. Warm but not too hot in the summer. Look up the island of Aero

I just googled Weddings in Italy, one of the lakes would be fantastic. I think like the UK you can get married in hotels now, so can be as low keyed as you want.

Do you have any particular reason to want to get married in another country? Surely the easiest thing to do would be to have your low-key ceremony over here and then go abroad?

The reason for abroad is a wedding/honeymoon holiday experience with just our kids. We would just be like ‘surprise! We went to Italy and got married’

We would expect even a low key UK wedding to attract issues with people being offended they are not being invited, or feeling obliged to keep adding people on and it growing bigger.

We would rather spend £5k on an amazing holiday with our children than a singular wedding experience itself

I don’t want a fancy dress, or flowers, or formal dining or guest lists or anything at all

Just would like to go from pool to town hall down a cobbled street in a summery dress, sign some papers, and go back and jump in the pool with the kids and eat ice cream.

Is it that easy 😆

I’ve seen that TUI do Sorrento weddings and frankly, this is taking my heart! One of my DC has been to Naples and loved it but DP and I have never been and it’s on our bucket list of places to go.

Rather than beach or hotel, I am thinking an old town hall.

Really look into the red tape of getting legally married abroad. Whilst you can do it, it can be a bit of a minefield of bureaucracy depending on the country.

Sorrento is lovely, no beaches but most hotels have pools.

Definitely look into the legalities of each country you are interested in first, before you get your heart set on a venue for example. Some European countries (France for example) you cannot actually legally get married, so you have your wedding 'celebration' and do the legal bit at home. We got married abroad and I didn't want to do this, so made sure we could actually legally get married.

We got married in Zante in 2019, where you can legally get married. After the ceremony you go to the town hall for them to certify the marriage and you get your wedding certificate which is in English and has been fine to use for name changing purposes in the UK.

It's obviously a few years ago now but our whole package for our day for around 30 people was £10,000, so significantly cheaper than an average UK wedding, and it probably still is. You can do it all yourself and contact vendors etc. directly however I couldn't have done this dealing with the language barriers etc. We used a UK based wedding planner who planned weddings in a number of European countries and they dealt with all the communication to vendors so I literally only had to talk to one person at the planner. There are also often planning services based in the country itself.

I'd say:

1. work out the legalities of actually marrying in the countries you are interested in
2. decide if you want to do it all yourself or via planner
3. decide if you want to use a UK or destination based planner

We got married abroad, it's really hard to just pop down to a town hall. We ended up doing the legal bit here. Then having a ceremony abroad. The country were married in required blood tests and all sorts. You'll find in countries where the predominant religion has been Catholicism it's more difficult because marriage is seen as being linked to procreation and religion.
We looked at Greece too but that was similarly difficult.

Google "getting married abroad gov.uk" to find the government website which can advise you on the legalities of marrying abroad in various countries.

The easiest place for UK couples would be Cyprus

A friend did exactly this on a Scottish island. It does make the legalities easier?