# Wedding planning - approximately 16000 km between families



## skipperydoo

My SO and I want to get married. The problem is our Families are almost literally at opposite ends of the earth and speak different languages. We've run through a few different ideas: 

- Two small weddings 
- An engagement party in One country and wedding in the other A wedding in the middle (ridiculous but we're racking our brains) 
- Get married at the marriage office and then have a party, head off to the other country for a party and then honey moon. 

They're all a compromise but that's part and parcel with our relationship. If you have married someone from another country I would love to know how you pulled it off and whether you would change anything.


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## summerandtilly

I haven't but I'm in the same boat, my partners entire family is in Europe and mine in aus, so when we do tie the knot it will most probably be in Australia and his family won't be in attendance  until your post I hadn't given it much thought but we will probably have belated celebrations with his family when we travel back to Europe... It's a hard one isn't it.


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## skipperydoo

Definately a hard decision! It will take some time to think about it. It is so hard because one family will end up with a disadvantage.
I might post this in another place here in the forum. Hopefully, some people would like to share their experience...


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## TheCoolKoala

I experienced the same thing a year ago.
So we got married in Sydney. The great thing is the process to get married in Oz is very simple and straightforward. I didn't really care about where I registered my marriage. You can still register it in your country of birth later on. To me, it was more paperwork than anything else.
It takes less than an hour, and you need 2 people you know to attend the registration. We got 2 friends to attend. They rushed in after office lol
Then we celebrated that at a good restaurant at the rocks (next to the harbor bridge).
Then a week later, we celebrated with the family in my wife's country of birth.
Obviously not many people from europe could come and attend... we didn't have a huge celebration. I will consider having a small celebration when I fly back to Europe. This time, my wife's family won't attend.
Cost of the whole thing was a concern for us. Our celebration cost us much less than if we did it in Europe. That's another reason why we did it like that. 
If costs are not your concern, of course, that doesn't matter much.
So, yes, 2 relatively small celebrations are probably a good option. If you had one big one with all guests, you would have roughly as many as your guests attending the 2 small weddings together, and costs would more or less equal, so it's all good.


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## Bay56

Depending on how your finances are, just ask and see if the smaller family is likely to travel OS for a wedding. I just came back from an overseas trip where I went to a wedding which was attended by roughly 30 people from Australia including myself. It was just cheaper to take 30 people to Europe than apply for 100 tourist visas to bring everyone over. However, this wedding was different as both families were same ethnicity and there was more family from our side that does not live in Australia attending the wedding which made the trip more enticing. 

This might not be feasible so you might end up with two small parties. 

If you ask me personally though, I'd have no wedding at all, maybe just a small party with the closest family and that's it, but that's a different issue altogether.


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## Homesickaussie

I got married in the UK this year. I'm from Australia. We decided based on family size. My family in Oz is much smaller than my husband's also my friends and family from Oz are a lot more intrepid than my husband's family. Also I didn't fancy arranging a wedding where I didn't live at the time. I guess it's down to personal preference.
We did think of having a wedding halfway, but we felt that we would have only half as much family there. 

We gave our family in Oz one years notice of the wedding to give them time to save and book flights and thankfully about 85% of my Oz based friends and family made it to the UK. 

Really in the end, make arrangements that include the most important people to you both, you are never going to be able to please everyone in this situation.


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## MaryMar

It is a tricky one and to me most important what the bride and groom want. My fiancee is from Philippines, to have her family attend Australia is out of the question, paper work wise would be a nightmare and financial. And my family have never travelled overseas and I would not want anyone to pay such costs to attend the Philippines for our wedding. We both agree its not fair to have one family more involved than the other, so we have come up with a simple remedy.... Beach wedding small gathering i mean small with a registered Celebrant. Then 2 celebrations / parties more social gathering 1 in Victoria and 1 In Philippines


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