Is it a good idea of have two marriage ceremonies...courthouse and church?

[shnooks]

My fiance and I are living together and want to get married right away so we can start saving money on insurance and other cohabitation expenses. Also, we need to file some legal papers that we have to be married to do.

 

However, we also want to have a ceremony with friends and family. His family is out of the country, and it is probably going to be closer to the end of next year before we can get everything together.

 

We were thinking about marrying at the courthouse, and then having the big ceremony later, but I have heard about officients not agreeing to perform the ceremony if you are already married. We would be taking vows twice.

 

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing, or think that this is a good or bad idea. I would really like some input.

 

We don't want our families to know what we are already going to be married, we want them to think that the big ceremony is the first and only one.

[Tony T]

First, I think you're starting your marriage out in a very dishonest fashion if you keep your marital status from your family. If it's that important to them, you can wait until they return to get married. Then end of the year is just a couple of weeks away and they will be back.

 

As far as two ceremonies, most decent, loving, and kind minded churches are very happy to see a couple who was married in a civil ceremony receive the solemn religious nuptuals. As a matter of fact, there are many people who renew their vows and get married a second time in the church twenty-five or more years later. If you belong to a church that refuses to perform a religious marriage ceremony for you after you have been married by a notary or justice of the peace at the courthouse, tell them to stick it and find a more loving church family. Life is way too hard already without having a church that gives you a hard time about something like this. Churches are supposed to be a place of love, not of hardheadedness.

[shnooks]

Thanks for your response about the church. His parents LIVE out of the country in Venezuela. He is over here on a student visa. The reason we would like to get married now is to start his immigration process and papers. It is going to be close to a year or more before his family might get a tourist visa because of all of the problems over there right now.

 

We would like to wait for the main ceremony, but we think it is extremely important to get his papers started now.

 

Mainly I just wanted to make sure that the officient, or preacher, or whatever would still perform the ceremony if someone had already been married by the justice of the peace.

 

 

Thanks!

[cdn]

We recently attended a church wedding that was officially called something other than a marriage ceremony (a dedication, I think), although many of the elements were the same. In this case, the couple had been married civilly in another country but wanted a church wedding here.

 

Could something like this work for you?

[Caddy]

I think you should be open and honest with your parents. If you want to get married so quickly then let them know why. Because otherwise it sounds like the two of you are just sneaking around.