Destination Weddings – Residency Requirements for Legal Marriages

Thus far, I have provided you with an overview of things to consider when deciding on your wedding destination, followed by whether or not you envision having a civil or religious wedding ceremony. Today, I wanted to discuss residency requirements for destination weddings.

In order to get married abroad be it the Caribbean, Europe, or the South Pacific, many of these beautiful and exotic locations require a minimum residency stay before exchanging vows and making your marriage legal. Residency requirements can range from being on an island for just 24 hours to three days to a month, what have you? It all depends on where you want to go.

Therefore, you must factor in the residency requirements when deciding on where to host your destination wedding in order to determine if the residency requirements are realistically within your wedding budget. For example, if you wanted to get married on the beautiful and tropical island of St Barthelemy (St. Barts), then you should know that in order to legally marry there, you will be required to be a resident there for forty days, which is the case for all French territories. This will significantly add to your wedding expenses because you will have to rent out an apartment and live there as a resident for that period of time before you can legally marry there.

Therefore, the gorgeous island of St. Barts can quickly become unattractive for a destination wedding location at least when the residency requirement is taken into consideration. However, by working with a destination wedding specialist, s/he will inform you of other similar options to host your destination wedding with less complicating residency requirements.

For example, in lieu of St. Barts, the Dutch side of St. Maarten (not the French side, St. Martin) or the tranquil island of Anguilla are both great alternate destination wedding locations because the residency requirements for getting married are a less stringent. And best of all,these two islands are so close to St. Barts, that after your wedding weekend festivities, the two of you can easily honeymoon in St. Barts, which is easily accessible by ferry from St. Maarten/St. Martin or a chartered boat from Anguilla.

I have decided to feature subsequent blog posts on some of the popular and most exclusive islands to host destination weddings. So, please come back to visit often or better yet subscribe to this wedding blog.