Weddingbee Blog

We are from Wisconsin, and getting married in Germany this September. For the marriage to be legal in Germany, we have to be married by a judge here first. We are a little bummed, but we don’t think we’re REALLY married until the ceremony overseas. Are you involving family and friends when you get married at City Hall? We don’t want to have everyone know, but at the same time, how do you not celebrate the day at all? Small, intimate party for two? (Doesn’t sound bad actually)

I feel for you epilgreen- Italy requires a civil “state” marriage before you can do a religious marriage (sometimes the Church can act on behalf of the state as well, but this is tricky, especially if either person is foreign). This is the case for a lot of European countries- Germany, France, Italy etc. In most countries the couple opt to do the civil about a week before the “real” wedding.

We’re opting for over a year before so we don’t have to deal with all of the residency stuff right around the time we’ll be bogged under with wedding things.

We’re not really telling a lot of people we’re doing it this way either (I know you Bees can keep secrets!). That being said, we are having four people with us when we sign that document and get a lot of official looking stamps on it. They are the FILs, FSIL & FI’s BIL. The later two will act as our witnesses (they’ll also be in the wedding). To celebrate the occassion we’ll head out to lunch afterwards.

Oh, and FI and I treated ourselves to some lovely new duds for the occassion (ok, spoiled ourselves more like it…. I got a fun, pretty, not-at-all weddingish Cavalli silk shirt dress, and that alone is making me a lot more excited about this aspect of “culture” sharing). Basically, what I am so uneloquently trying to say, is even though we’re not 100% thrilled with the whole ‘civil first’ thing, we’re making it special and ours…