If you’re engaged and planning your wedding, you might be seriously considering getting married abroad, somewhere other than the UK. There are lots of different, very good reasons for getting married abroad but there are also some things that you may need to consider depending on the destination of your wedding. Today we are looking at some of the things that you need to remember when planning your wedding in a foreign country.

Local Laws

Depending on where you go to get married you may need to apply for an official UK wedding license before you go. However in some places you will also need to apply for a local wedding license so that your ceremony is legally binding. Speaking to somebody at the local administration offices should allow you to find out any legal steps you need to take before having a wedding in their country.

Visas

If your spouse comes from the country in which you plan to get married you may be surprised to learn that your marriage doesn’t automatically guarantee that they will have residency in the UK. There is such a thing as a UK fiance visa, and this is something that you may need to secure if you’re planning to have them live with you in the UK in the period leading up to the wedding.

Language Differences

You may find that some weddings will be performed in the local language, regardless of whether you speak it or not. When Husband and I got married in the Maldives, our ceremony was conducted in Dhivehi, which is the local Maldivian language, so we were unable to understand what was being said! We were given a translation afterwards so that we knew what we were agreeing to in our wedding ceremony.

Cost

Most of the time, the reason people choose to get married abroad is because the cost of the wedding ceremony and honeymoon all come in at a much lower cost than what you’d pay to get married in the UK. However if you’re planning to take your guests with you, you’re going to need to factor in whether it’s affordable for them if you really want them to be there. Unless you’re planning to pay for the whole bridal party to accompany you, you may need to run the cost of the whole shebang past your nearest and dearest before you start making any bookings.

Wedding Planner

The best and easiest way to arrange a wedding in a foreign country is to hire a wedding planner. You can hire a planner here in the UK who specialise in foreign weddings or if you have good enough language skills for the destination of your wedding you could hire a planner who lives near your venue which means that you will benefit from their Knowledge and expertise of their home country and getting everything sorted that is required for your wedding.