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Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

post #1 of 11
5/15/08 at 12:40am
Thread Starter 
For you Canadian girls, did anyone legally get married in Canada? FH is 100% for it, I'm 100% against it. But since he's budging on me completely blowing our photography budget, it's something I'm willing to bend on. If we do just the ceremony in Mexico and the legal part in Canada, I want it to be a very low key, courthouse kind of thing.

I'm in Vancouver and have spent the last couple of hours on the BC vital statistics website but it's all geared to 'regular' weddings where you're married at a venue. Does anyone have any information on getting married at the courthouse?

Thanks in advance!
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post #2 of 11
5/15/08 at 2:04am

Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

I think you need to find a marriage commissioner for your area, and make sure you get the marriage license too (valid for up to 90 days before you do the legal ceremony)

Some info is available here BC Vital Statistics Agency - How to Get Married in BC

Here's a link to the marriage commissioner stuff for BC (it's also in the site on the above link):
http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/marriage/Inf...onersDec21.doc

Hope that helps,

Sorcha
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post #3 of 11
5/15/08 at 3:47am
  • 1,914 Posts. Joined 4/2008
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Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

My Mom mentioned this to me when we first sterted planning our DW and both my FI and I were 100% against it. Then when it came time to start looking at booking, it was mentioned by the TA. Then I started to think about it, and I was on the fence about it. I decided to mention it again to my FI (expecting to get a flat out 'NO') and he said that we could do whatever was cheaper and easier. I told him that doing the legal thing here before going down would be a lot easier since we wouldn't have to worry about the paperwork, the cost of the paperwork and the symbolic ceremony down there would be cheaper as well. That was all it took, and now we are doing the legal ceremony here. I still haven't gotten that arranged, as I am trying to decide if I should get my MOH to drive 2 hrs from Edmonton to be here for it the day before we leave from Edmonton, or if we should find someone in the city to do it after we get there. Any info for the Edmonton area?
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post #4 of 11
5/15/08 at 11:19am
  • 414 Posts. Joined 1/2007
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Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

I can't give you any help with the BC part of it, but we did this.

We had our legal ceremony with the marriage commissioner the day before we left for Mexico. It was just Ed and I and my parents - we didn't do a ring exchange or anything at all, just the legal part and signed the paper work and that was it!

Heather started a thread about this the other day - I posted there too...I'll see if I can find it...

Lindsay

ETA: here's the link to the other thread: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...101#post382617
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post #5 of 11
5/15/08 at 11:44am

Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

We did the legal part in Edmonton a few weeks ago. We first had to get a marriage license and then we were refered to a marriage commisioner through our TA. We had a really informal meeting where we basically just signed a few documents. We didn't exchange rings, kiss at the end, and we weren't even pronounced husband and wife. Technically we are legally married, but we aren't considering that our wedding day.
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post #6 of 11
5/15/08 at 1:56pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

Klavallee that's exactly what we would want - no rings, no kiss, no husband and wife.

The thing is, I don't want it to be at a place where we choose - because then it will start to turn into another ceremony here. Did anyone get it done at a courthouse, etc? Something completely unrelated to you so that it had no meaning whatsoever?
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post #7 of 11
5/15/08 at 1:59pm
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Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

We arranged to do the legal part at the marriage commissioner's home - somewhere we've never been, nor will we ever return to!

For us, it was just paperwork - that's all! :)

Lindsay
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post #8 of 11
5/15/08 at 2:03pm
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Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

I know this isn't helpful since I didn't get married in Canada but we did the I do early too. We got married in Vegas and we did the ring exchange, the vows, the silly kiss and we didn't let it be the real deal in our minds. We just made it silly- I mean, come on it was. We had horns honking in the background during our vows and the vows themselves were completely ridiculous.

With that being said, it didn't take away from our "real" wedding at all! I mean- AT ALL! We both still got teary eyed and totally sucked up in the moment. I wouldn't worry about the pre-ceremony taking away from the wedding ceremony. It still magical even though you know you were previously married. I was SO nervous before the wedding ceremony and I have no idea why. I was already married at that point, but it sure didn't feel like it. LOL
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post #9 of 11
5/15/08 at 2:09pm
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Re: Do the 'legal' part (courthouse marriage) in Canada

Quote:
Originally Posted by klavallee View Post
We did the legal part in Edmonton a few weeks ago. We first had to get a marriage license and then we were refered to a marriage commisioner through our TA. We had a really informal meeting where we basically just signed a few documents. We didn't exchange rings, kiss at the end, and we weren't even pronounced husband and wife. Technically we are legally married, but we aren't considering that our wedding day.
Do you have the contact info for the marriage commisioner you used? Can you just PM it to me if you do? When we were going to book through UNIGLOBE, they were going to set us up with a marriage commissioner, but we decided to go with a local TA that seemed to care more about us and what we want.
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post #10 of 11
1/9/13 at 1:25pm
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I was very against it at first. However, we're getting married in Mexico, and to get married legally there requires too much work (waiting 3-4 days after arrival to get married, and a blood test while in Mexico). The blood test just scared me, so I decided to just go to City Hall (I'm in Toronto) to get the paper work done. Just 2 witness that is required, and keeping it low-key as well. At the DW, we're going to arrange to have something signed so people can't tell the difference that it is just a ceremonial wedding in Mexico.

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