Newly engaged, dreaming of a European castle wedding

lmluna310 · September 2012

My boyfriend just proposed to me last night and I'm already in wedding planning mode! lol. We have about a year, we want to get married by the end of next year and preferably while it's still warm. Right now we're thinking of a small wedding in a castle in Italy or France. We don't have a huge budget, but we figured we could swing something small. We want something all inclusive where our guests could stay also. I looked at some stuff online, but I didn't see much. Does anyone have any opinions of this or have they looked into it? Thanks!

minionlover · September 2012

I am not much help since I don't know that much about Europe but I wanted to say welcome to the board and congrats on your engagement!!

Julyet06 · September 2012

Welcome to the board! I am not much help either but stick around a while and share what you find with us! If you are not finding what you need on the internet you may want to look into a TA to help you along.

Congratulations on your engagement!

harr0610 · September 2012

I am also not much help but just wanted to say congratulations and welcome!

lmluna310 · September 2012

Thanks, I'll keep everyone posted on what I find out there!! I thought TA (I hope you mean tripadvisor), I use them all the time for planning our vaca's. I LOVE them

Where are you all planning your weddings at? I immediately thought beach or tropical, but my fiancees brother did that and we want something different. We want something memorable and unique. Even if we go against France or Italy it will still be in some other city than where we live because our family is scattered all over the place.

tiny speck · September 2012

Congrats and welcome! I live in England and am getting married here, so I can't speak about Italy or France specifically, but I can say that it's very important that you do lots of research into the marriage laws in whatever country you choose, to make sure you satisfy all the requirements.

For example, in the UK, you have to "give notice" of your marriage before you can legally get married. In order to do that, you have to have lived there for at least 8 days. Then, once you've given notice and paid the fee, you have to wait another 16 days before you can have the wedding. Meaning, you couldn't just fly in a few days before your ceremony.

Obviously each place will have its own laws, but in Europe they are generally something along these lines, and often religious officials cannot legally marry anyone (meaning that if you wanted a religious wedding, you would have to have a civil ceremony with zero religious content before you could have your religious ceremony).

I hope that helps a bit. Good luck with the planning!

minionlover · September 2012

I am getting married in West Palm Beach. Can't wait!! We really wanted to get married on the beach and be able to have some family there. So it worked out perfect.

You may want to start looking into marriage requirement, (especially residency requirements), for the country you want to get married in as some can be pretty tough.

Also TA = travel agent. They can be your bestfriend while planning a destination wedding.

lmluna310 · September 2012

Yeah, we looked into some of the laws last night and were overwhelmed immediately. I read in France you have to live there for 40 days. The country that seemed to have the easiest laws to obtain a legally binding marrige license was Italy, but it's still about an extra $900 for all the paperwork. I think we will most likely have the legal ceremony here in our hometown (at the courthouse) and what we have overseas will just be a symbolic ceremony.

Julyet06 · September 2012

I am getting married in Jamaica on Feb 23, 2013! We chose Sandals Negril and I cannot wait to get there! Jamaica has a 3 day residency requirement which we will have satisfied in order to be legally married which is not as bad as other requirements in other countries I guess (ie no blood tests, short residency requirement).

Sandals is also all inclusive but beware when you see "all-inclusive", if you plan to have a dinner reception most, if not all, resorts (even the all-inclusive ones) charge you for food/drink. I learned this the hard way and eventually just sucked it up and moved past it, lol!

nicolej518 · September 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-theme-boards_destination-weddings_newly-engaged-dreaming-of-a-european-castle-wedding?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20Theme%20BoardsForum:54Discussion:5ddcdae2-eb28-470f-8f7d-5fc3c7e4d470Post:176d4438-5e5c-4f71-b9f9-0841be72cc7e">Re: Newly engaged, dreaming of a European castle wedding</a>:
[QUOTE]Yeah, we looked into some of the laws last night and were overwhelmed immediately. I read in France you have to live there for 40 days. The country that seemed to have the easiest laws to obtain a legally binding marrige license was Italy, but it's still about an extra $900 for all the paperwork.<strong> I think we will most likely have the legal ceremony here in our hometown (at the courthouse) and what we have overseas will just be a symbolic ceremony.
Posted by lmluna310[/QUOTE]</strong>
This is what I just did on Friday! I am getting married in the Dominican Republic and while the requirements aren't super crazy like some in Europe, it was free here. The only 2 people that know (in addition to all of you!) are just the 2 people we had as witnesses. We did it on our anniversary so the day had a little more meaning to us, but we will celebrate our wedding day as the one we are doing in DR.

harr0610 · September 2012

I am getting married in St. Thomas! We picked St. Thomas since it's still US (I didn't want to get into the whole legality thing of getting married in a foreign country) and there's no waiting period at all so it was easy

I want to go to Europe soooooooo bad. Our families are going to be on our "weddingmoon" with us so I'm trying to convinice FI that we need an actual honeymoon to Europe next spring/summer.

lmluna310 · September 2012

Wow, big secret to keep- congrats Nicole!!

Well here I am on day 3 and we've already decided Europe is out of reach. Our families kind of panicked when we said France, plus our flower girl's parents are divorced and it would be hard to get her out of the country.

We decided to do it somewhere on the US Virgin Islands since no one will need a passport, I am really looking into St. Thomas because my BFF / MOH is from there and her whole family still lives there, I know she'd be thrilled. We still don't want it on the beach, we're thinking top of a hillside with a beach view in the background.

So far I've noticed that the all inclusives are always missings extras we want- like DVD or bigger cake. I figured there's some extra we'll pay for. The main thing want we want is for our guests to not have to worry about drinks and food while they're there.

I still want to go to Europe for the honeymoon, but my fiancee doesn't want to fly from Houston (our home) to the Caribbean then back to an airport hub (Newark or Houston) to get back to Europe. It's a lot of travel, so I won't push him. We were thinking of maybe just staying in the Caribbean and maybe going to Jamica or DR, like a little island tour. You should def. do the Europe honeymoon next year if you can. I went for the first time earlier this year and fell in love with it!

deaddressed · October 2012

I know you didn't mention Ireland, but I stayed at a castle there earlier this year and it would be PERFECT. I actually got engaged while we were there, and thought about going back for the ceremony! It's called Ballynahinch Castle, on the west side of Ireland.

But to be quite honest, ANY castle you choose is going to be beautiful. What a wonderful idea... best of luck!

Newly engaged, dreaming of a European castle wedding

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