Destination Weddings Discussions

Scotland DW

Anyone have any experience in planning a wedding in Scotland? FI was born and raised outside of Glasgow. We met in college and are wanting to have a more traditional (for his culture) wedding.

We are planning on having an at home reception, very informal, just a party rather for those who are not able to join us. For those who have done this, did you mention in the formal wedding invite that there will be a reception at home following the wedding or did you send this seperate?

Thank you!

Re: Scotland DW

  • Lakinn said:
    Anyone have any experience in planning a wedding in Scotland? FI was born and raised outside of Glasgow. We met in college and are wanting to have a more traditional (for his culture) wedding.

    We are planning on having an at home reception, very informal, just a party rather for those who are not able to join us. For those who have done this, did you mention in the formal wedding invite that there will be a reception at home following the wedding or did you send this seperate?

    Thank you!
    Getting married in the UK is difficult unless you have permanent residency here. You will need to get a fiance visa. There is a huge crackdown in the UK with regards to non EU citizens getting married here so you will not be able to do it on a tourist visa. Also, if you are getting married in a church, you have to attend 6 times over 6 months. You also need to have your banns read which takes about 30 days. Your fiance will need to prove that he can support himself without access to public funds (so he needs to earn at least £20,000 and have it demonstrable over 6 months with payslips, bank statements, employer letters etc). 

    In addition to a visa (which can take a couple months), you are looking at at least a 30-40 day lead in of you both being physically present in the UK before the wedding (not counting the 6 times over 6 months if you want a church wedding). 

    So whilst it isn't impossible, it is not a good place if you are looking for a quick week-long marriage getaway.
  • Coming out of lurkerdom to say that, while most of what @londonlisa says is true, some of the details are different for UK weddings where one party is non-EU. There are two types of marriage licenses in the UK and if one party is non-EU not all the rules above apply. You do have to get a fiancé visa - if you don't, you will be turned around at the border (didn't happen to us but our wedding planner planned another wedding where it did happen!). Assuming that your fiancé still has UK citizenship, you should be able to get married in the UK. You will have to apply for a fiancé visa - there are two types. The first is if you want to live in the UK after you're married and the second is if you plan to live outside the UK after you're married. We don't plan to live in the UK so we applied for the second one for my then FI and it was quite straight forward - proof of job in the U.S., return plane ticket etc. I've no idea what the regulations are like for the other kind of visa but I imagine they are pretty tough. For the type of marriage license you get if one party is non-EU, the church can waive the reading of the banns and the attendance requirement if they want to. There is also no need to be in the country for a month beforehand. You do however need to be in the country long enough to get the marriage license, which you would want to do two weeks before the wedding to be sure your officiant receives it before the wedding date - so still not a weekend trip to get married. I also agree that it would be incredibly difficult, almost prohibitively so, if neither of you has UK residency or citizenship. To answer your question about the celebratory party - my MIL threw us a party for people who couldn't fly to London and we mentioned it on our wedding website. Invitations then went out a few weeks before the party.
  • Great, thank you for the help. I had no idea how hard it was for getting the visa's and meeting the requirements.
  • Very late to the post. I'm curious to hear how you got on. Currently in the midst of planning my own wedding in Scotland. 
  • OP hasn't been on since December, if you have questions you might have better luck starting your own topic. 
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  • Closing zombie thread since OP is no longer active on the boards.

    @knottie1448131004 please start a new thread if you need assistance.

     







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