November 12, 2006
Getting married in Italy is hard (What Tom Cruise has in common with me)
Like my wife and I wanted five years ago, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes want to travel to Italy for their wedding ceremony. Like we had five years ago, Cruise and Holmes are finding that getting married in Italy is hard. It seems that Cruise has 2 problems. First, the church doesn't want a divorced scientologist getting married there. Second, there's a paperwork issue: "I don't think it (the wedding) will be legal,'' the town's mayor, Patrizia Riccioni said. "On an Italian level, there are papers and documents that we certainly don't have (for a wedding).''
The second problem is the same one my wife and I had 5 years ago. I called the Italian embassy, and they wanted my birth certificate translated into Italian and with some sort of official seal. So I call New York State and tell them what I need.
"We don't do that," said New York. In other words, I couldn't get an official birth certificate translated into Italian. I spent a week calling people who would talk to me for free (if I had money I would have just hired a lawyer to take care of it all). I ended up not getting married in Italy...
Has anyone here had an Italian wedding? How did you do it? How were you able to make arrangements?
Posted by James Trotta at November 12, 2006 12:06 AM | TrackBack
In response to your question, I discussed the same idea with an aquaintance couple who did use Italy as a marriage venue...but brought along their american OWN priest... So while technically the marriage was not recognized right away by anyone, upon returning to the States, the priest did the necessary paperwork in the US and basically trated it as a marriage on US soil...
Posted by: Adrianna at November 14, 2006 11:59 PMThat sounds easy! Thanks for the information. I suppose since renewing vows doesn't require paperwork, my wife and I can do wherever we please.
Posted by: James Trotta at November 15, 2006 12:30 AMWe wanted to get married in France a year and a half ago, but the paperwork alone would have cost 500 Euro in fees and heaven know how much time and effort getting all the official translations etc etc. In the end we got married in UK (with only four witnesses who were sworn to secrecy) and arranged with the Mayor (who was very pleased to help us) to carry out the marriage ceremony for us in front of all our guests, without registering it. So far as our guests were concerned (and us) it was the real thing.
A number of other people I have talked to have done this as continental beaurocracy is somewhat formidable.
I don't know if the same pertains in Italy.
You know, it really doesn't matter where you get married at all. It's the paperwork that makes the whole of the marriage legal in the eyes of the government. All you need is an official person to handle the paperwork for you, i.e. a priest, judge, that elvis guy in Vegas, or get one of your friends to be ordained by the internet.
The ceremony can be of any real function, a church, backyard, lobby, a Hard Rock Cafe, or Italy. Just go there and do it, but don't rely on that ceremony to be the legal binding agreement. Just get the paperwork done in the US and you'll be happy as a clam.
On a sidenote, I think they are having more problems because Italy doesn't like that crazy lunatic getting married there at the home of the Catholic religion. Suppose more about press and media than anything else - I mean how many lawyers does this man have anyway?
- T
Posted by: Ty at November 17, 2006 5:35 AMTrue enough Ty. We celebrate our anniversary on the 19th, but since we did the paperwork a few days later it's not our legal anniversary... It's all about the paperwork.
Posted by: James Trotta at November 21, 2006 10:45 PM