Getting married in India...where to start.

Katana

We had the most amazing time in india last november and couldnt think of a more perfect place to get married. However having looked at various sites I am now very confused. The reason we want to marry abroad is to avoid all the stress and expense of a typical english wedding. We want sun, sand and a few relatives to join us. We are hoping that this will be around november this year. How do we get started with this and avoid being ripped of by wedding planers in either countries. we have quite a maximum of 5k to spend.
Any help or advice at all would be greatly appriciated.
peace xx

Nick-H

You'll find a number of 'similar threads' listed at the bottom of the page. Check those out, and use the search feature too, most of your questions will have been asked before.

However, to add the personal touch, (and because I'm garrulous by nature ), let me repeat a couple of things I've probably said a few times before...

Indian bureaucracy: you simply do not want to know! If you really do want to do the whole thing in India, I recommend googling for wedding organisers, and take professional advise.

However, I strongly recommend that, whatever ceremony you choose to have in the name of religion or romance, you formally marry in your home country. One very good reason for this is that it avoids having to spend the rest of your days persuading anyone who officially needs to know that, yes, you are married, and yes, this scrap of paper issued in India is a legal marriage certificate.

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Valini

Hi Katana,

Congratulations! Firstly, the most important part is to congratulate you on your engagement!

Planning a wedding in India, when you live in another country, and when you don't have family a strong contacts based in India can be very difficult and frustrating, verging on the almost impossible!
You really need someone on the ground who can orchestrate the whole thing and book the right people and suppliers for the right price! If you contact each individual supplier or service yourself, every time you will have to battle the price, and still not be 100% sure what you're getting.

I assume your budget of 5k is in pound sterling?
How many people do you plan on inviting? You say a few family and friends, but are you talking 20 or more like 50? This will obviously change your price, all caterers even in India regardless of the quality of food will charge per head.

I can strongly recommend an Indian wedding planner who specialises in "destination weddings" - right up your alley!

www.mysticalmoments.com

Obviously there is a wedding planner fee, but you will only have to say what you want and the rest is done. You will then also get the best prices for the top hotels and flower arrangers, musicians etc since they work with them regularly.
If you just want a simple christian or civil type service (blessing i suppose ) you will get legally married in England first? - otherwise you've got a big struggle....)
so if you want a nice ceremony, a lovely slap up meal, and a bit of partying afterwards, you'll get that for your budget. And I'm talking top quality, higher than an average UK standard! If you want something more eleborate, or a couple of different 'do's' you might need to rething your strategy.
The hassles that you will encounter otherwise can't bare to be imagined.

Also though remember : it might be a way for you to save money by holding your wedding in India, but think how much your family and friends will spend to get there too!

Don't hesitate to pm me if you'd like more details.

Victoria

NB check out the other threds about legally getting married in india, it's not easy especially if you're both Brits.


!!! cross posted with Nick! DITO avoid the legal hassle in India!

Nick-H

Mrs N and I organised our wedding in about six weeks. It was a register office non-do (they don't even stop the other stuff while they marry you) followed by our own evening celebration for just a few (maybe 30, I forget)people at home. This was simple stuff: a cafe-owning friend of mine did the catering and gave general encouragement; another friend, a musician, arranged the classical musicians to play for us, and chairs, tables, lighting, photographers etc came together from people Mrs N knew, people they knew, and newspaper adds.

We live here. Still we could have done with more time, but one of the first things we did was print the invites, so the date was unchangeable.

It is not the sort of thing you can pull together yourself on a trip.

Nick-H

... On the other hand, you can exchange vows, standing under a palm tree, with your friends around, as the sun sets over the lake behind you, with little or no organisation, and little or no cost over and above the hotel you're staying in anyway.

I recommend Kerala

Valini

yes, perhaps not Goa since it's so overrun with tourists and people 'from' home... not as exotic as I think you're after. Or maybe you've already chosen the spot? Why not the mountains? overlooking the himalaya? not very sandy but sure as hell beautiful (even if quite cool in November!)

edwardseco

Victoria is dead on because you will want a bit of ceremony. The caveat is that it won't be cheap when you factor in air fare for all concerned to go to India and back. How few people do you have in mind? It would be excellent to have a planner for the venue and officiator and registrar details. Supposedly you require 30 days advance notice for registration and that is how it gets legal in the home country in most cases. A planner can probably "fix" that. A planner can take care of the odd emergencies that come up as in my case and can find a "suitable to you" venue. I wanted a hotel rather than a wedding hall and suitable banquet facility for a real good meal (after attending too many with mediocre food). Is there some extra detail for UK valas because they invented red tape?.

Katana

Thank you everyone for your replies.

The idea of having to get married here and then have it blessed in India kind of defeats the object for us. We would like it to be official and legal ceremony over there. For sentimental reasons. We had thought of Kerala then traveling around for our honeymoon period.
We would probably only be taking another 2 adults, who would pay for there own flights and possibly their accommodation as well and our 8 year old daughter. So our costs would entail 3 flights, decent accommodation for around the wedding period and that of a ceremony. And we want to travel the Indian way for our honeymoon period...because that’s what we love. Our guests on the other hand are more accustomed to the luxury type accommodation. Having tried to arrange a previous holiday online in India it does worry me a little about the hidden extras etc. With a planning organiser..Would we have to haggle hard as is the usual way or are they set prices?

Many thanks again for all your help. x

Valini

hi katana,

Most wedding planners will have a fixed minimum and then a percentage depending on how big your do is. Since you'll only be five people it will work out very expensive to organise a full scale wedding via a planner. Perhaps your best bet would be to go through a major hotel. If you want to have a bit of luxury for the couple of days just before and after your wedding before moving on to the honeymoon, you should hook up with one of the big hotels (i'm thinking 5 star Taj / oberei etc. Tell them what you want, and perhaps they can arrange it for you or go through their own events organiser. That ay you know that you will get a decent quality thing and they won't really dare mess it up!
If you've got 5k pounds and you're only five people, you can really go to town and have a superb do... enjoy!

Nick-H

True, but, if you insist on doing the legal stuff here, you cannot rely on anybody other than an experienced professional to have any idea --- even if they claim they have! Nor can you rely on a wedding organiser who does local weddings and not catering for visiting foreigners.

Here in India, a Hindu temple wedding may or may not be registered. The registration is a separate bureaucratic procedure, although it is possible to pay the registrar to attend the wedding and do the paperwork. Why not follow the model? Have your ceremony here; register it (in the form of a register office wedding) in UK.

What sort of wedding do you want? Hindu, Muslim? Christian?

mirjamd

I totally agree with Nick on avoiding the legal stuff here. There is nothing, absolutely nothing ceremonial about it here. It will take place in a dusty office with very uninterested bureaucrats. We (me from the Netherlands, my husband an Indian Hindu) had trouble convincing the registar office to even register the marriage! Let alone two people from Britain. There is no idea here of a special bureaucrat assigned to conduct marriages like there is in the UK. And don't forget the notice you have to give at least one month, and maximum three months in advance.

And then there is a whole other hassle of getting the marriage registered with the UK, which we haven't started yet, because you have to go to 3 Indian offices before getting it legalised by the Dutch embassy (or government office in the Netherlands.) I guess it is the same procedure for the UK.

I think it will only spoil your wedding with unneccessary hassles.

But the idea of a wedding on a beach somewhere is brilliant!

Nick-H

Mirjam, it sounds as if your experience was similar to ours. I would describe our reg. office marriage as exactly like being married by a cattle auctioneer who doesn't bother to stop the auction while performing the marriage. There is no privacy, no ceremony, no photo-oportunity. Our registrar was one of those exemplary Indian govt. officers who are 100% honest; others are likely to extract considerable bribes. It wasn't fun, and had it not been for own, separate ceremony at home I wouldn't even have felt "married".

Mirjam, did you get married under the Special Marriage Act? Or did you succeed in registering a Hindu Marriage? I'd expect that to be partiularly difficult, or even impossible, for two foreigners, especially if neither is of Indian origin.

As far as I know, our Indian marriage is recognised in UK, and there is no need for us to do anything further to register it there. We do not have that additional complexity that you have for the Netherlands. But our marriage certificate is a scrap of green paper with typing. Apart from a rubber stamp, there is nothing 'official-looking' about it at all. They do very few marriages under the Special Marriage Act, and the register office simply did not have a printed form for it.

You'll get a much nicer certificate, and a bit of comfort, from a UK register office! They showed us their wedding room when we went to register my mum's death; my Indian wife was astonished and wanted to get married all over again!

mirjamd

Yes, Nick, I think our experiences were pretty similar. Except that our registar officer wanted a bribe of Rs. 1000, which we didn't end up giving thanks to connections of my father-in-law. After those connections at the anti-bribery office had been called the officer was extra courteous

The description of the cattle auctioneer is very accurate, haha.
We brought my father, sister and brother-in-law, but they were utterly disappointed, as they were even ordered out of the office, because it would get too crowded!

We are married under the Special Marriages Act. Our certificate is also a piece of typed paper (with watermark though..), but still it looks like it could have been typed by anyone..

cool blue

Gosh this all brings back memories! We should have another thread on the different experiences.

I have to agree about the bureaucracy and hassles of getting the marriage registered. We had our ceremony in Nepal which was really special and not cold, despite it being a December morning (auspicious time was 9 am!)It then took a year and a half to get the registration done. (a long and boring story).

We had to post a notice of intent to marry (or something like that) which had to be on public display for at least 30 days, then the registration had to be done between 30 and 90 days after the original notice. Complicated, and necessitated both of us being present at the court building. The proceedings after that were like many accounts - waiting in a dusty waiting area for hours, rushing out to find 2 witnesses, rushing out again to get a passport size photo with us both on it, and then bein told to come back in a week's time because the person who signs was off sick. It was actually nearly a month later when we finally got the certificate. Mind you, it was worth the wait and even has one of the photos on it!

The key message is to check out if the marriage registration process can actually be carried out while you are in India - you might have to have a very long honeymoon, but I guess that is no hardship!

Good luck!

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Nick-H

Ho! Mirjam... You got a watermark! All we got was a rubber stamp .

We got to take our three witnesses in (well, I guess that stands to reason!) but were strictly told nobody else and no photos.

The clerk got Rs100 'tip' and another when we went back for the certificates (no, you don't get them the same day! Or, at least we didn't.) the week after.

I would expect most registrars to speak English, but not necessarily any of the junior staff that one might have to deal with. Also, you have to get documents, certificates and stuff typed up by the free-lance document writers which are part of the eco-system that grows up around the register office. I think that could be tough without a knowledge of the local language.

Of course, there are always touts in that ecosystem too! We could easily have paid several thousand rupees more, but it would have been no benefit.