Wedding in Abruzzo May 2008

[sue h]

Hi people,
I have been on this site before and have posted previous posts regarding our planned civil ceremony,
in May however we have hit some difficulties with the paperwork as my other half is not british and as he is not a UK citizen, his country requires lots of documents from "me" with apostile stamps and all translated in order to give him his cert of no impediment...too much hassle and as we are terrified of arriving there and us being short of something we have decided to get married over in the UK before we fly out with our guests. The hotel is booked along with the meal etc but wondered if anybody had any ideas as to how we can make it a bit more special to make up for the lack of Italian wedding ceremony, we do bebelive that the town hall will not marry us unless it is a legal ceremony, although waiting for final translation to confirm this...any ideas please?
Sue

[Fanine]

Hi Sue
I doubt the town hall will marry you as otherwise you will end up having two legal ceremonies. I am sure that will be against the law as they would have to issue you a wedding certificate, which you will already have got in the UK. What you want to do really depends as well whereabouts in Abruzzo you will be? If you will be near the sea maybe you could try and organise some kind of boat trip. If you will be near the mountains then maybe something in the national park. In May it is difficult to predict how warm it may - or may not be so you need something that will not rely on good weather as it can often be wet then.
It also depends very much on how many guests you will have with you as well. Do you speak Italian as that will make it easier to organise something local over there. I got married in Abruzzo (traditional church wedding etc etc) and had to do all the organising in Italian - flowers, cars etc - as no-one spoke English.
Maybe you could also make your meal a bit more lavish? I don't know what you have planned, but as a traditional Italian wedding meal would be at least 6 courses, make sure you have something along this line and have music afterwards - possibly a band playing traditional Italian music? to keep everyone entertained right into the early hours. Will post any more ideas if I think of them.

[Nicola]

Are you religious? Why don't you have a blessing - in a Catholic Church or find out if there is a Protestant Minister in Abruzzo who could come to you at the hotel. Or if you're not religious why not get in touch with someone at this website: UAAR - Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti (union of rational agnostics and atheists) and see if they can recommend a humanist celebrant or someone similar.

If you manage to arrange something like this to all intents and purposes it could look like it's a "proper" wedding ceremony and most of your guests would probably be none the wiser

[Skichi]

One of the best weddings I've ever photographed had similar issues so they married in the UK (registry office w/ handful of guests) and travelled out to Barcelona for their 'real' ceremony. They particularly wanted to marry in a place that was special to them both - a stunning private villa. We were treated to an absolutely wonderful, emotion-charged ceremony, performed by a close friend of the couple. The entire thing was written by the 3 of them, it sounded like a real wedding, they had ring exchanges etc., the only difference was that it wasn't legally binding. I wish every wedding was as romantic & emotional as that one.

[Skichi]

Actually, thinking through last year's weddings, I think 4 were either blessings by Priests or were civil equivalents. It's much more normal than you may think over here and there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have the 'works' with regards to reception, party afterwards. It will be treated just the same as a normal wedding by the vendors.