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Mr. Socks and I get asked that a lot. Our wedding day is in October (10/10/10) but our actual, legal marriage day is going to be in mid-September at three o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday, performed by the mayor of Haddonfield, NJ.
Why, you ask?
Okay. Here’s the deal: I don’t want a stranger to stand up in front of us, our friends and family, and talk to us, a young random couple they don’t know from Jack & Jill, about our marriage. Our wedding day is so intensely personal to me and Mr. Socks that we just thought it would be… weird. If we were religious and there was a particular priest or minister that we loved, knew and trusted, this would have been a super easy call. But since we aren’t religious, we kind of just thought… well, we know ourselves and our wants and needs for our marriage better than anyone… why not DIY the ceremony too?
The thought of who would deliver the ceremony then became our next question.
We didn’t have to ponder long—we have six wonderful people who love and care about us enough to stand by our side on our wedding day… maybe they’d even be willing to speak at our ceremony as well!
I didn’t want to make any or all of them get a marriage license though since I’ve heard horror stories of some friends “marrying” a couple only for it to be invalid! I wanted to make sure we had all of our legal ducks in a row in regards to our marriage status according to the State of New Jersey. A civil ceremony was just the answer.
We will be inviting our parents and our bridal party (our siblings unfortunately will not be able to make it). If our bridal party would like to come to the ceremony, they are more than welcome to come, but to us, it’s really the 10/10/10 ceremony that will matter to us. That will be the day that we declare our love and commitment for each other on our own terms in front of our family and friends, and that means the world to me. The civil ceremony is simply a legal formality in order to get there.
I don’t think this makes a lot of sense to some people, but that’s okay. I don’t mind if people don’t consider our October wedding to be our “real” wedding since the only thing that matters is that we view it to be our “real” wedding.
I am excited for both ceremonies, though! I have a wonderful dress for the civil ceremony (this one I WON’T be revealing—you’ll see it soon enough!). My dress for the civil ceremony is very much the opposite of any dress I looked at for our October wedding—it’s flowy and a very Grecian style that I’ve never worn before, and I love it!
Are you having a civil ceremony before a larger wedding? How did your friends and family react to your decision?
I love your reasons for doing this, it makes perfect sense! AAAAAND, any excuse to get another dress works in my book!
We’re doing the same thing, for different reasons. We decided to have our wedding our in California, where we can be here to plan it ourselves (and the weather’s better, etc), but have some older relatives who won’t travel this far. Our civil ceremony will be parents, grandparents, and siblings only and it will enable our grandparents to be there since it will be back east. I also like that this gives us the freedom to have whoever we want officiate at the wedding, though.
We’re doing something similar. Because of vacation time constraints, we won’t be able to apply for our NJ wedding license in time before the wedding. So we’re having a civil ceremony the week before in California! I”m a little excited about being a two dress bride too, lol!
We are having a civil ceremony because our wedding won’t be legal in the states! We are thinking about going out to Vegas and doing it up for the weekend! I’m planning on a super cute mini dress for the occasion…
I think that whatever day YOU guys consider to be your wedding day is what counts! If this is what works best for you guys, who cares if others don’t understand.
We did a civil ceremony too, for the very same reason! We want to have a friend perform the ceremony, without having to worry about ordination and whatnot. Go DIY ceremonies! Now I have to get around to writing it…
Haddonfield?! I grew up in Mt. Laurel…that’s like right around the corner!
We have similar ideas/reasons, but are having someone deputized for the day to do it all at the same time. It seems pretty easy to arrange here in California: $50 filing fee to deputize a person for a specific day and specific couple to marry. I’ve got all the paperwork organized for when we actually set a date and can send it in.
I have the same feeling about some stranger up in front of us, though, and we’re not at all religious.
We did the exact same thing and for the exact same reasons. But we wanted our legal wedding date to be the same day as the day we considered to be our wedding day (the day we stood in front of our family and friends). Since we got married on July 4, that meant going to the local jail a few hours before our ceremony to wait in line with the people being booked instead of having a nice, neat appointment at the courthouse. We thought it would make for a great story and it did, but honestly that jailhouse ceremony was so sweet with just us, our parents and my best friend, that it was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. We had a number of people who simply didn’t understand why we did things that way, but it worked for us and I wouldn’t change a thing. I hope both of your ceremonies are as meaningful as ours were!
We aren’t doing this because we have a close family friend who is a minister marrying us, but if we didn’t have him I would seriously consider it. I could never hire someone random to just show up and marry us. Too impersonal for me.
In PA, you can actually apply for a self uniting license, which you and Mr. Socks would sign, but there would be no officiant signature. It’s offered because of the large Quaker community in PA, but is offered for all to apply for, Quakers and non-Quakers alike. I think it is a slightly higher fee, though.
As a wedding officiant (and a fellow 10/10/10 bride!!), I do a lot of civil ceremonies for a various number of reasons, before the “real” wedding day.
We are having 2 ceremonies! Our legal ceremony was in May, for immigration purposes. I moved to Canada about a year ago, and was planning our wedding for September, only to find that after we marry in the States, I could potentially be required to stay. I didn’t think too much of our legal ceremony beforehand, but during the ceremony I broke into tears! It meant so much more than I had expected. We had a couple of comments from people. More family than friends. It kinda jabs a bit, but what ultimately matters is what creates meaning for you two.
Good luck and God bless!
We did this, and I wrote a post about it. We did it for several reasons, including military benefits. But mostly because we just wanted to follow in my parents’ footsteps (in Europe it’s very common to do a civil ceremony first) and we wanted to just get married already! We haven’t told everyone about it, but our parents and siblings were there. Those we have told were totally understanding about it. Do whatever works for you! I think it’s utterly romantic.
i will be doing something very similar. we’re still debating inviting anyone at all to the civil ceremony, though. however, should nobody be invited, nobody will ever know about it. our little secret.
as far as our “minister” goes for the wedding ceremony, it was an EASY choice for us. there are two people who could/should be best man for my fiance and having one of them be the officiant completely makes sense and gets my fiance out of making the decision of who is best man.
We had the same problem with finding an officiant. It felt weird and I kind of had that feeling of doing something you shouldn’t be doing to look up a rent-an-officiant in the phone book lol (not that I begrudge anyone who does that, I just personally felt weird about it, my FI for example didn’t feel weird about it at all lol). Anyway, our solution was that his brother got “ordained” lol. He really is ordained and we know it’s legal because he did it online though a website provided by the state of Florida.
We’ll be doing something like this too! Only our witnesses and our friend “officiant” will know about it. We just asked our friend last night (who is actually FI’s good friend’s dad) if he would be the “officiant on our actual wedding day. He cried and accepted! We will be legally getting married beforehand, in a civil ceremony. I don’t plan on making a big deal of of that day though (will probably wear jeans and a t-shirt, no flowers etc).
we’re doing something similiar…
however, it’s a family member who demanded to let him become ordained first so HE could marry us! lol. He’s already got the liscense from online and all he has to do now is pay the fee to become registered in VA as an ordained minister. gotta love it! (he’s already looked up EVERYTHING online and it’s appearantly not that difficult to become ordained any more!) (we are gonna offer to pay the fee, though, since it’s for our wedding…)
This is a wonderful idea! I just love how your ceremony will be done by special people rather than just “an officiant” etc. All that matters is what you think & your wedding day WILL be 10-10-10 in your hearts. The before part is just a formality for sure. We were actually considering doing something like this but with a slightly different twist. We were thinking of a civil ceremony a year before the real thing so we could start getting all that stuff out of the way however as my defense was- we wouldn’t actually be married until our big wedding next year. It would be a formality to help with things like my getting his insurances etc. which is kind of embarrassing but seeing as how I have been unable to secure a job after grad school a reality. However he wouldn’t go for it so here we are.. still truly unmarried & intentions to stay that way till the real thing!
We are having a self uniting ceremony in PA.
(The same that Jessie Blum @ Eclectic Unions mentioned)
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Mrs. Socks, Southern NJ/Philadelphia, PA Age and Occupation: 23, Web Developer/Marketing Specialist Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Systems Engineer Engagement Date: September 7, 2009 Wedding Date: October 2010 Venue: Ladder 15 Restaurant About Me: I am originally from the Midwest, but I love being an East Coast transplant! Mr. Socks and I are foodies and winos to the core---give us a hunk of cheese, some charcuterie and a glass of wine and we could die happy. We have two mischievous Wire Fox Terriers with completely opposite personalities but with a shared love of uprooting anything in our garden. Our backyard garden includes everything from tomatoes and peppers to a fig tree, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries! I love cooking, indie music, and spending time in our wedding city of choice---Philly!
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