Wedding Next year in Ireland

Re: Wedding Next year in Ireland

• CMGragain member

  

  February 2018 edited February 2018

  No one is invited to a wedding unless they receive an invitation.  if you send out Save the Date cards, you MUST follow up with a formal invitation, so the choice is completely yours.  If someone is so rude as to ask if they are invited, you simply say, "We have a very small, intimate wedding planned."
  
  Are either you or your FI residents of Ireland?  Their legal requirements are not easy.  Make sure that you investigate this.  You can't just hop off the plane and get married in Ireland.  There is a three month waiting period!
  

  

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• LondonLisa member

  

  February 2018

  knottie84fd6bded70062ee said:

  My fiance and I are planning a small intimate wedding in Ireland next. My fiance has social anxiety so he asked me to try to our guest list under 30 (right now its at 34), but I have a few friends who assume they are invited, and I don't know how to address that. How do I address that issue? 

  1.) are you and your fi an EU citizens with Irish residency? There are a lot of requirements to get married in Ireland. 
  
  2.) Just because you invite 30 doesn't mean 30 are going to come for a destination wedding. Yes, plan on 100% attendance and be able to pay for 100% attendance, but for a destination wedding, you are likely to have a much smaller rsvp rate. 
  
  3.) I am not sure I understand your question- do you want these friends to come and you want to know how to bring it up with your fiancé? Or do you not want to invite these people and you are wondering if you need to address it with them?

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• knottie84fd6bded70062ee member

  

  February 2018

  I just spoke to my wedding planner and she too said that the legal requirements are difficult currently and I am opting to do a symbolic ceremony there. We made an engagement announcement on facebook, only to get people saying things like "Congrats, I can't wait to see you two get married!" And the majority of those people didn't make our cut for our list. I also have a friend getting married in September, that I feel obligated to invite to my wedding next year because she is inviting us to hers. The guest issue is driving me bonkers frankly.

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• InLoveInQueens member

  

  February 2018

  knottie84fd6bded70062ee said:

  I just spoke to my wedding planner and she too said that the legal requirements are difficult currently and I am opting to do a symbolic ceremony there. We made an engagement announcement on facebook, only to get people saying things like "Congrats, I can't wait to see you two get married!" And the majority of those people didn't make our cut for our list. I also have a friend getting married in September, that I feel obligated to invite to my wedding next year because she is inviting us to hers. The guest issue is driving me bonkers frankly.

  
  JIC
  
  
  You need to make it absolutely crystal clear to your guests that your ceremony in Ireland is not your actual wedding and they're making the trip for you to play dress up.

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• MyNameIsNot member

  

  February 2018

  knottie84fd6bded70062ee said:

  I just spoke to my wedding planner and she too said that the legal requirements are difficult currently and I am opting to do a symbolic ceremony there. We made an engagement announcement on facebook, only to get people saying things like "Congrats, I can't wait to see you two get married!" And the majority of those people didn't make our cut for our list. I also have a friend getting married in September, that I feel obligated to invite to my wedding next year because she is inviting us to hers. The guest issue is driving me bonkers frankly.

  Since the Irish thing is just a symbolic thing and not your wedding, maybe the easiest way to appease your friends would be to invite them to watch you actually get married.
  
  I can't imagine anyone would be interested in travelling for a symbolic whatever. If you're getting married at home, just invite them to that!

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• levioosa member

  

  February 2018

  InLoveInQueens said:

  knottie84fd6bded70062ee said:

  I just spoke to my wedding planner and she too said that the legal requirements are difficult currently and I am opting to do a symbolic ceremony there. We made an engagement announcement on facebook, only to get people saying things like "Congrats, I can't wait to see you two get married!" And the majority of those people didn't make our cut for our list. I also have a friend getting married in September, that I feel obligated to invite to my wedding next year because she is inviting us to hers. The guest issue is driving me bonkers frankly.

  
  JIC
  
  
  You need to make it absolutely crystal clear to your guests that your ceremony in Ireland is not your actual wedding and they're making the trip for you to play dress up.

  Yes. It is so incredibly rude to have people pay thousands of dollars and time off work only to have them watch a play. I want to see the real thing. Go on your honeymoon to Ireland. But don’t make people spend all of that money and vacation time for a fake ceremony. 

  
  

  
  

  

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• LondonLisa member

  

  February 2018 edited February 2018

  Your wedding is the day you get legally married. A wedding has a black and white definition. No matter what you do, whatever vows you say, you will never be married in Ireland with these people present if you continue with these plans.  A 'symbolic ceremony' is not a thing. This is something created by the wedding industry in order to make money and sell you an idea at the expense of family relationships. 
  
  You need to be CRYSTAL clear with everyone that Ireland is just a party and not a wedding. And also be prepared that most people will not fly internationally for just a party.  Your anniversary will be the day you got married in America, and this is a matter of public record. 
  
  If you think social anxiety is bad now, wait until you are on the receiving end of the wrath of friends and family that were lied to, forced to spend thousands and holiday days. There are countless stories on here about brides who did this, and it ended up destroying family/friend relationships. Please search the archives about how duped people feel that it wasn't actually a wedding. And don't even try the "those who love me will understand". They'll say they will t your face, but they'll be hurt. I can show you so many examples on here of wedding guests of friends/family that were lied to about DW that the couple has no idea about. 
  
  If you are so concerned about numbers and stress, why not have a small, casual wedding where you live in a familiar environment that you both love, like a local park and then go eat at your favourite restaurant. How much stress will it be that you don't have to deal with jet-lag, transport, and organisation in a foreign country. Then go on a honeymoon in Ireland and say whatever vows you want to say there, just the two of you. Best of both worlds, and also saves the stress AND family/friends relationships. 
  
  If you want to get married in Ireland, you need to make the sacrifice and actually GET MARRIED in Ireland. That means taking the time to establish residency and jumping through all the legal hoops. Remember, your planner's motive is to sell you things, she doesn't care about the lasting implications to relationships. To use an Irish phrase, none of this 'symbolic' ceremony malarky!

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• mollybarker11 member

  

  February 2018

  Plan a small intimate ceremony in your town. If someone not on the guest list assumes they’re invited simply thank them for their well-wishes, tell them you’ve opted to have a small wedding, and change the topic. Eg,
  
  FB Friend: “Congrats on your engagement, I can’t wait to see the two of you get married!”
  You: “Thanks so much! We’re planning a small intimate wedding sometime next year. How’s little Sally doing? First grade this year, right?”
  
  Then plan a honeymoon in Ireland. As PPs pointed out, it’ll eliminate so much unnecessary stress! (Planning a local wedding is way easier than planning a international wedding, as you’ve realized. And it makes waaay more sense than planning a local wedding + an international symbolic ceremony.) On one of the days of your honeymoon you can even hire a photographer to do a newlywed shoot in a scenic Irish location.
  
  Please do not let anyone fool you into thinking that “just signing the papers” is the dull boring legal part of a wedding that no one would miss at a symbolic ceremony. Gay couples fought for decades for the right to have MORE than the symbolic ceremonies they were restricted to.

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• ahoywedding member

  

  February 2018

  I've beat this story to death on these boards, but my sister did just what you're planning. They got "married" in Mexico, but there would have been an extra cost to get their legal documents translated from Spanish to English, and maybe a couple other restrictions that I can't remember and they didn't want to "deal with all of that." Our other sister and I were very hurt we weren't told about the legal ceremony, nor were we told about it. Our parents found out on accident, when they ran into one of my sister's friends. 
  
  Anyway, we all still traveled to Mexico, but we were pretty salty about it. It didn't help that an all-inclusive wasn't my typical vacation style and it was more expensive than I'd usually spend on a vacation. When you invite guests to a destination wedding, you're basically asking them to spend their limited vacation time and money on a trip that you chose for them. The least you can do is invite them to the actual, legal ceremony. 
  
  

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• CMGragain member

  

  February 2018 edited February 2018

  Fire your wedding planner immediately.  She is not working in your best interest.
  If you continue with your plans for a "symbolic wedding" in Ireland, (Whatever THAT is?) you will insult every guest you invite to it.  Inviting guests to a wedding that is fake is the height of rudeness.  There will be people who will never forgive you for this.  Is that what you want people to remember about your "wedding"?
  Plan a nice local wedding and invite your guests to the real thing.
  
  Oh, and weddings are taken very, very seriously by the Irish government and people.  Your plans are insulting to them, too.  There is no such thing as a symbolic wedding as far as the Irish government is concerned.  This is WHY they have strict laws.
  

  

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• artbyallie mod

  

  February 2018

  Why on earth are you paying someone to plan a pretend wedding? If you want to get married at a distant destination, you should at least bother to, you know, GET MARRIED there.

  

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• downtondiva member

  

  February 2018

  Either you accept the legal requirements  in Ireland and actually get married there, or you forget the plan entirely. Do not make people spend a fortune to be at your "symbolic wedding." How absurd.

  
  

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• southernbelle0915 mod

  

  February 2018

  Asking people to travel to Ireland for a "symbolic ceremony" is grade A showboating craziness.
  
  If you move forward with this nonsense, you need to be 100% crystal clear with people WAY in advance (like before they buy tickets and/or ask for time off from their jobs) that this is not a wedding and that you two will be already be married at the time. 
  
  So to answer the people who say "Congrats! I can't wait to see you two get married!" You can either a) not respond (no one is entitled to an invitation to anything), or b) let them know that you're not getting married in Ireland anyway, so it's a moot point. 

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• short+sassy member

  

  March 2018

  knottie84fd6bded70062ee said:

  I just spoke to my wedding planner and she too said that the legal requirements are difficult currently and I am opting to do a symbolic ceremony there. We made an engagement announcement on facebook, only to get people saying things like "Congrats, I can't wait to see you two get married!" And the majority of those people didn't make our cut for our list. I also have a friend getting married in September, that I feel obligated to invite to my wedding next year because she is inviting us to hers. The guest issue is driving me bonkers frankly.

  
  PPs have already covered that a symbolic ceremony isn't a thing, so I won't go on too much about that.  But, by all means, I'd definitely recommend that you and your FI honeymoon in Ireland and find a beautiful spot...just the two of you...to have this symbolic ceremony that sounds important to you all.

  As to the first bolded, I think a lot of people say that as a misguided congratulations and/or "thing to say".  I wouldn't put too much weight on it that they actually expect to be invited.  Especially when they hear through the grapevine that the wedding is small and with only family and very close friends.

  You do NOT need to invite your friend, just because she invited you to her wedding in September.  This is not a "tit for tat" deal.  She might be inviting 250 guests so, of course she is inviting most/all of her friends.  She should be understanding and not have her nose out of joint if she isn't invited to the small wedding you all are having.

  I had a first cousin attend my small wedding (35 guests), though technically he was my aunt's guest.  He got married less than a year later with over 5x the guest list, but I wasn't invited.  Was I upset in the slightest?  Nope, not at all.  I never felt he was obligated to send me an invite, just because he'd been at my wedding.   

  

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