Destination Wedding, Court House only or Real Wedding?

[bigdog 376]

Your first and hopefully last, do what you want and can afford. Oh yea have fun.

[habibi11 16]

I'm in a dilemna & seeking opinion. This is my 1st marriage, 2nd for him. What is people's intake on a destination wedding to say Hawaii or Las Vegas or California.. I am kinda against the court house wedding. Will I regret doing a court house signing papers because I don't get the "walk down aisle" and "bride". I'd like to be able to wear a wedding gown and I'm not into court house now, wedding later. I want 1 wedding date, not various dates. If we do a real local wedding in Seattle, it would be family only, about 100 guests. I am at the NOA2 of my K-1 Fiance Visa and wanting to marry ASAP when I get into the States so I can apply for EAD & AP (90+ yr old Grandparents).

Siiigh! Decisions..

try to find a place where u can do ceremony /reception and dosent need much time to book... we have place that only needs 6 weeks ahead to book so when the time comes we will be allset.... we are only having 40 poeple.... it will be perfect and if u can find a friend who is good at taking pics so u dont have to hire a photgrapher.... and do things urself to cut costs im doing silk flowers i keep looking around for deals and buy little at a time when i see specials i used MIcheals craft store they will even make up ur flowers for a cheap price....as for a dress start looking now that might be ur hardest part... but some places might be able to get u a dress quickly or sell u the sample..... Destination could get really pricy.... good luck

Edited July 24, 2012 by habibi11

[Sapphire Moon 25]

Its doable, but you need to move fast, work hard and be flexible. One thing that helped was there is a wedding chapel at the Mall of America, which made our wedding part easy. My wife brought a wedding dress we had made in her country and a Barong Tagalog for myself, so our clothing was handled. Brides maids dresses where a pain to pick out since everyone had to agree, but we managed that in a very long day of running around. We bought something off the rack that could easily be used again, but made the brides maids look wonderful. The reception was a bit tougher. But we found a hotel with a bar and restaurant and an open room. We got the room for the catering price, and the meal was served buffet style. They also have a band on weekend evening in the bar, so we did not need to book our own entertainment. Everyone just moved to bar later on during the reception. BTW we were married 5 weeks after her arrival, so we managed to put this all together very fast and we had around 60 or 70 guests at the reception. The wedding was a bit smaller with about 30 people attending, but the wedding chapel wasn't really very large.

This was our real wedding set up in just weeks. It wasn't perfect, rehearsal time was too short, but it was memorable and meant more to us than a court house wedding would have.

Thanks for sharing the video! What a sweet ceremony

[Brian121957 43]

I'm in a dilemna & seeking opinion. This is my 1st marriage, 2nd for him. What is people's intake on a destination wedding to say Hawaii or Las Vegas or California.. I am kinda against the court house wedding. Will I regret doing a court house signing papers because I don't get the "walk down aisle" and "bride". I'd like to be able to wear a wedding gown and I'm not into court house now, wedding later. I want 1 wedding date, not various dates. If we do a real local wedding in Seattle, it would be family only, about 100 guests. I am at the NOA2 of my K-1 Fiance Visa and wanting to marry ASAP when I get into the States so I can apply for EAD & AP (90+ yr old Grandparents).

Siiigh! Decisions..

If money is not an issue go for the "walk down the aisle wedding" only. Pay what ever it takes to rent locations on relative short notice.

Both of my daughters had over 250 guests and it can be a real challenge to find good prices unless you are planning 10 months or more in advance. With your K-1 timing can be critical.

I might suggest doing the court house wedding and tell no one. Treat it like any of the other paper work things you have to do for immigration. It is just one of the legal things you have to do.

This lets you apply for EAD and AP sooner and give you more time to plan a nice church wedding. If you are religious, it is you and him standing up before the priest god and family that makes you joined in union. Not some paper you signed in the court house.

Another way of looking at it. Even when you get married in a church with a priest you still sign the same court house marriage license. So when do you consider your self married? When you both say yes and the priest declares you to be married. Or latter when you all sign the license.

[rayandmel 39]

I am not a fan of the big wedding, but I am with you. I want to at least wear the dress and have a nice small ceremony. Do what makes you happy. We picked a place we both want to see and haven't been. So we are renting a fantastic house in the mountains of Utah and having 10 close friends come with us. We are getting married on the deck and having a chef cook us dinner at the house after. Do what makes you happy, but also what you can afford. A lot of places will be flexible with days. Good luck!

[Fight for Love 98]

I'm in a dilemna & seeking opinion. This is my 1st marriage, 2nd for him. What is people's intake on a destination wedding to say Hawaii or Las Vegas or California.. I am kinda against the court house wedding. Will I regret doing a court house signing papers because I don't get the "walk down aisle" and "bride". I'd like to be able to wear a wedding gown and I'm not into court house now, wedding later. I want 1 wedding date, not various dates. If we do a real local wedding in Seattle, it would be family only, about 100 guests. I am at the NOA2 of my K-1 Fiance Visa and wanting to marry ASAP when I get into the States so I can apply for EAD & AP (90+ yr old Grandparents).

Siiigh! Decisions..

hey how about garden wedding or beach wedding that's my plan for our wedding too

[jjbandero 39]

First of all, congratulations! It's great you're making progress, just a suggestion, while we sent out paper invitations, my husband and I did not include any RSVP cards, we thought it would be too troublesome if they came in late, since we were doing a destination wedding (live in LA, wedding in Chicago), instead we created a website to provide information about us, the wedding, RSVP and directions. It worked out well, our guests easily followed the instructions on the invite, logged on and gave their responses. It was simple for me to tally up who was coming and what they wanted as well. We were not under the K1 visa time pressure, but we had a small wedding we had our ceremony & reception in the restaurant's private room, lucky we did too, it was a super hot day in Chicago and I'm sure our guests appreciated being in an air conditioned space in their formal wear

Cheers

[Joanne n Thanh 0]

My fiance and I are getting married in Hawaii. She has been married once before and I want this one to be better () So a destination wedding was what I had in mind. If you go to http://www.wedhawaii.com/ you can find extremely cheap ceremony prices and they take care of everything. Also they work with your schedule and are very flexible. Only 1 more month until we get to tie the knot!

Whatever you choose I hope its a good one!

O wonderful idea.. I'm gonna look into this option - I'd LOVE a beach wedding!

[akihon 129]

I planned my destination wedding in less than a month ... BUT I guess I can't relate in the sense that I'm not on K-1.