Legal Considerations

The first question we had in planning our destination wedding was whether the marriage would be legally recognized in the United States.

The U.S. State Department website is a good resource for U.S. citizens interested in getting married in a foreign country. Basically, the short answer is yes, it is legally binding in the United States.

In order for your marriage to be legal, you must follow the local laws and procedures of the country where you will be married. Most countries have residency requirements (the length of time before the wedding you need to be in the country). In the Bahamas, the residency requirement was one day. However, Tahiti has a residency requirement of 30 days, essentially eliminating it as a potential location for destination weddings.

In nearly all cases, you will need to produce legal documentation (usually your passports), but could also include birth certificates, death certificates (widow/widower) and/or divorce decrees. We got married in the Bahamas, which also required that we had to go through a brief interview with a local official (about 10 minutes). We did not need to do a blood test, which can be a major issue for some people getting married in some countries (including Mexico).

Couples can encounter difficulty when returning to the United States if their marriage license is not in English. To be valid in the U.S., you must have an English translation of your marriage certificate. If you get married in a former British colony (Bermuda, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, etc.), that won’t be a problem. However, if you get married in a country where the official language is other than English, be sure to investigate what it will take to get an official translation.

Also, before leaving the wedding site, you should consider getting multiple official notarized copies of your marriage certificate. When you get home, you’ll need extra copies of your license to change your name.

The Legality of Destination Weddings

The first question we had in planning our destination wedding was whether the marriage would be legally recognized in the United States.

The U.S. State Department actually has a website for U.S. citizens interested in getting married in a foreign country.

You need to follow the legal procedures of the country where you will be married. Most countries have residency requirements (the length of time before the wedding you need to be in the country). In the Bahamas, the residency requirement was one day. However, Tahiti has a residency requirement of 30 days, essentially eliminating it as a potential location for destination weddings.

You will need to produce legal documentation (usually your passports), but could also include birth certificates, death certificates (widow/widower) and/or divorce decrees. Since this was the first marriage for both us, we only needed our passports and copies of our birth certificates. In the Bahamas, we also needed to go through a brief interview with a local official (about 10 minutes). We did not need to do a blood test, which can be a major issue for some people getting married in some countries (including Mexico).

The other major issue that people encounter is getting their marriage certificates/licenses translated into English (which is required for your marriage to be legal in the U.S.). The official language of the Bahamas was English, so we did not have any troubles. We wisely obtained multiple notarized copies of our license, which came in handy when we got home. We needed extra copies of the license for the name change.

Destination weddings can introduce some additional hopes you might need to jump through with respect to legal issues, but it is not a major problem.

First things First – Is it legal?

As we planned our destination wedding, our first question was whether a foreign marriage was recognized in the U.S. Is it legal? Are we really going to be married?

The U.S. State Department actually has a website for U.S. citizens interested in getting married in a foreign country.

You need to follow the legal procedures of the country where you will be married. Most countries have residency requirements (the length of time before the wedding you need to be in the country). In the Bahamas, the residency requirement was one day.

You will need to show legal documentation (usually your passports), but could also include birth certificates, death certificates (widow/widower) and/or divorce decrees. Since this was the first marriage for both us, we only needed our passports and copies of our birth certificates. In the Bahamas, we also needed to go through a brief interview with a local official (about 10 minutes). We did not need to do a blood test, which can be a major issue for some people getting married in some countries.

The other major issue that people encounter is getting their marriage certificates/licenses translated into English (which is required for your marriage to be legal in the U.S.). The official language of the Bahamas was English, so we did not have any troubles.

We wisely obtained multiple notarized copies of our license, which has come in handy since we got home. We needed extra copies of the license for Laura to change her name with various companies, with the government on her passport, etc.

In the Bahamas, we received our official government marriage license, but we also received two copies of the ceremonial Bahamian wedding registry. The signing of the Bahamian registry is actually part of the wedding ceremony (see photo at right).

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we did not need to register our marriage with the state. We have had no problems buying a house, changing Laura’s name or changing our health insurance/401ks with our employers.