August 2010 Wedding

[serenaee]

I got married on September 22 in New Jersey at the Town Hall and had my ceremony in Aruba November 12. It all worked out. I just scanned a copy of my marriage certificate and sent it over to the wedding planner at the Marriott . Hope this helps Congrats!

[Bryan Morris]

You can either do as serenaee or you can do it right before you come to the island and then come with your paperwork then. That should not be a problem.

[Keys2009]

if you get married in NY, it's really quick and you get your certificate right then and there.. Bring a copy to Aruba and all I had to do was present it to the wedding planner. Quick and easy. Worked out great.

[christene]

We got married at home and then did our beach wedding at the Marriott. No one ever asked us for a copy of our marriage certificate. Were they supposed to? I understand the 'beach wedding' to simply be symbolic and have no legal bearing so I'm not sure what anyone would need your marriage certificate for. Reverend Gibson had a 'keepsake certificate' for us to sign but given its not a legal document we were able to have my husband's 9 & 13 year old boys sign as the 'witnesses' which was kind of nice. Our magistrate ceremony at home was less than two weeks before our Aruba wedding... We didn't even get our local legal certificate until after we got back home. It never occurred to us anyone would want to see it - luckily no one did.

[soxgirl]

We were back and forth about this, but we have decided to do the civil ceremony in Aruba followed by a beach ceremony. Our parents are a little concerned about this, but we figure we may as well do it all the same day. We're only bringing two witnesses with us to the courthouse and really treating the beach ceremony as our wedding.

[Flamingo78]

We were apprehensive too, but ultimately decided that if we were going to go to Aruba to get married, then we wanted to actually (and authentically) get married there! We started to get the paperwork going about 6 months in advance, and although it is a little intimidating, it’s really not that bad once you are clear about what you need. We faxed all the paperwork down to our wedding coordinator and to the Aruba City Hall and since it was all approved we were able to secure our civil ceremony date and time. We wanted our civil and beach wedding to be on the same day, and it all worked out. Just one anniversary to celebrate. The civil ceremony was beautiful, and about 20 family/friends came to watch (although they didn’t have to, but wanted to… we had 72 total guests at the beach ceremony!) and the civil service was a very special ceremony – more heartfelt and intimate than I expected, and hardly a dry eye in the room. We got our translation and paperwork without any problems at all. We did not have any issues with the government in the USA (we’re from MA). I truly recommend it, but whatever you decide to do will be the best choice for you. Enjoy & congratulations!

[soxgirl]

We are all set for our civil ceremony. We got all our paperwork together which as others have said took a little while. We faxed them over to make sure everything was accounted for and then sent the documents via FedEx. I got a response from our wedding coordinator that she had received everything the next day (coming from Boston this was surprising). Thanks for all the reassurance that the civil ceremony will be legal (and beautiful).