Symbolic or Civil Ceremony?

[SarahAndSteve]

Hi there,

We are planning our wedding for Nov 2012 in DR. We are currently trying to decide on weather to do a symbolic or civil ceremony.

My thought is that the extra fees/paperwork etc arnt a big a deal to me, however the way it works out with flights is that only possible day we could do a civil wedding there would be to have it on wednesday, the issue with this is that all our guests fly out the following day. Just wondering if anyone else has been in this position and what you decided or how it went, how the guests felt about fly hungover etc etc

Also wondering for those of you who decided to go with symbolic if you had any regrets? Did it feel like a 'do-over"? Or take away from "im getting married!!" excited feeling?

 

Thanks!  

 

[can bride]

Hi! We are getting married in mexico in Feb. 2012 and having the same thoughts.  I myself feel like it would be like a wedding redo so we are having both a minister and JP perform the ceremony . Doing it this way is going to be similar to what your experiencing.... a lot of our guests will be leaving the following day.

[can bride]

hi what wedding package are you two concidering? Were going with the complementary package with some add ons.

[anudrm]

Hi, well I am married.  Have been married since January 2010 and I still have that I'm getting married feel!! The big dress, the minimum guest, I know I will still cry the tears of joy and still look at my husband the same way I did when we had a civil ceremony in the states.  

A lot of brides have done there civil ceremony before they left for their destination and just had a symbolic at their destination and from what I read the scripts are so similar none of your guest would know the difference if you didn't tell them.

[can bride]

Does anyone know what the extra charges are for having a civil ceremony? In the complementary package the justice of the peace is included, but what is the extra charge for wanting a minister also ? Any info. would be very helpful

[anudrm]

It depends on your resort.  I know at DLR the charge is $500 for a civil ceremony with an officiant and $650 for one with a priest/minister.  Yet you should contact your WC at the resort and they can give you a better answer.

[Antoinette4Luxe]

I am urgently looking for an officiant to perform a symbolic ceremony ASAP! Can you please forward me the contact information of the person you used! Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

[FutureMrsDawson]

I am using Pastor Rick York - ryork@codetel.net.do to do our symbolic ceremony.  We didn't want to go through all the hassel of translating everything to Spanish, not to mention the cost.  And the judge doesn't really do much at the ceremony, they have one of the wedding co-ordinators officiate so that is why we went with the symbolic ceremony. 

 

We are getting married at the Town Hall here the week before, and Pastor York does an entire ceremony there, so people won't really know the difference and we are going to celebrate the 14th as our true wedding date, when we say I do before all our friends and family. 

[ncruz06]

civil

[CDNCouple09]

We chose to do the symbolic ceremony. For us it wasn't a big deal but we chose the symbolic because it was easier to plan everything and we didn't want to have to rely on when the Judge could do it. We leave for our wedding in the Domincan in 17 days and we actually did our legal paperwork at home in our living room in March. We did it so early because I had to renew my passport and didn't want it to be in my maiden name for the next 5 years! Only a select few people know that we have actually gotten "married" already as we didn't want to spoil it for everyone else. We have a good family friend that is going to be doing the ceremony which I can honestly say will mean more to us than if the judge did it and the wedding coordinator translated it. We were able to write our whole ceremony script and it is perfect. We are even doing up a piece of paper to sign at the ceremony so people won't even know the difference. I do not feel like I am married already and I am so excited to walk down the aisle(beach) and say I Do! I can promise you that it makes no difference in the end!