Wedding Question

[jess1287]

I got engaged Christmas morning and we are wanting to have the wedding at Couples Swept Away in August. I have read a few different legal facts and I am wondering about the 72 hour law?? We were going to fly in on a thursday and get married that saturday so we would have the rest of the time for the relaxing honeymoon.... Is it true you must be on the island for 72 hours prior to your wedding?? CONFUSED!!

[Bab1974]

Yes it is true. I'm flying in on Sunday Sept 15th and they won't marry us until Wed Sept 18th. I e-mailed the weddingplanner and she gave me the details on when I could get married. It does kind of break our week up and doesn't leave much time to do other stuff, but I'm going to Jamaica to get married, so it will be awesome no matter what day they marry us

[lsm1212]

The rules must have changed as I got married at CSA in 2004. We arrived on Thur and got married on Sat. I think it was 48 hours back then.

[sweetnessinthesand]

I am having the same experience as you, jess. We got engaged christmas morning, 2011. We planned our wedding for this coming March. We are arriving Thursday, and getting married Saturday. We were also worried about the 3 day/72 hour law. We booked our trip and wedding January of 2012. We spoke with multiple Couples employees, including the booking agents and the stateside wedding coordinator before we booked. The booking agents told us our dates were fine. We emailed the coordinator with our schedule and other questions. We specifically told her we would be arriving Thursday the 7th, and getting married Saturday the 9th. In her response, she addressed some of our other questions, but made no acknowledgement about the dates, so we are assuming it will be just fine.

One other thing with this, different people (employees and other MB writers) have said different things. Some have said its 72 hours specifically, (so if you land at 3pm, you cant gett married until after 3pm, 3 days later). Others have said it is 3 days, but day of arrival and day of wedding count, so Thursday one, Friday two, Saturday three(time doesn't matter). Still others have said it is 3 days, but day of arrival does NOT count, so if you land on Thursday you can't get married until Sunday.

I seriously hope it is the middle option, because ALL of our wedding/reception items are customized with our wedding date on it.

[sweetnessinthesand]

Oh, I almost forgot..

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

We have been browsing this site for a year now, and have become officially addicted to the message board, and cannot WAIT until we arrive!! We started our countdown with over 400 days, and are finally down to:

61 days 22 hours 55 minutes until we land!!!!

[sweetlastname]

Sept 18 is our anniversary..we were married at COR in 2006. Congrats to both of you - Couples does a great job with weddings!!

[Pamela]

There is no 72-hour "law"; the 72-hour requirement is merely resort policy.

Under Jamaican law, visitors can be married 24 hours after arriving in Jamaica, assuming that they have already applied for a marriage license.

[rckbert]

When we were married at CSS 7 years ago we were also told that there is a 72 hour law but I just checked online for you and found this link that says you can get married after 24 hours if apply for your marriage license ahead of time. You might want to check this out closer to see if you can do it this way. Enjoy and congrats! http://www.visitjamaica.com/articles...n-jamaica.aspx

[sweetnessinthesand]

Pamela and rckbert,

Thank you both so much for your answers, that takes a huge load off my chest, and I'm sure it helps jess out too. rckbert, I looked at your link, and it raised another question for me...

The link states that the fee for a marriage license is $50. On Couples site, it states that there is a $250 fee for government fees and license. I am curious to know where the extra $200 goes.

When we were initially looking for wedding locations, we were debating between Couples, and the Shoe resort. Shoe's government fee is only $95. We still chose Couples, because of the price and everything else we saw and read on the website, and paid the $250 no problem. I am just curious to know where that money actually went, if not to the Jamaican Ministry.

Maybe any other MBer's or one of the Couples staff can answer this question.

Thanks!