u/Hot-Combination6395

I'm hoping to hear from people who have been in a similar situation.

I am an Italian-British dual citizen living in England and my fiancé is British. We're both Catholic and would love our main wedding celebration to be in Italy and one thing that is important to my fiancé is getting married in a church.

From what I've been reading, it seems that the easiest option from a bureaucracy perspective might be to legally marry in England first, register the marriage in Italy afterwards, and then have some sort of church blessing or religious ceremony in Italy with our family and friends.

However, I'm really torn.

Part of me feels that if we're going to have a church ceremony in Italy, I'd like that to be our actual wedding day. On the other hand, I've read so many stories about Italian paperwork, certificates, apostilles, translations, deadlines, documents expiring, etc. that I'm wondering whether I'm making life harder than it needs to be.

For anyone who has gone down the "legal wedding first, church blessing later" route:

• What did the church ceremony in Italy actually look like?
• Did it feel like a real wedding day or more like a blessing?
• Could guests tell the difference?
• Did you still wear a wedding dress, exchange rings, walk down the aisle, have readings, music, etc.?
• Did it feel special and meaningful?
• Looking back, do you wish you'd done the full legal church wedding in Italy instead?
• If you did the full legal Catholic wedding in Italy, was the bureaucracy really as difficult as people make it sound?

I'd love to hear honest experiences from people who have actually done either option.

Thank you!

Let me explain the situation. I am Italian, my whole family lives in Italy. My fiancé is British, and we both live in the UK. We decided to get married in Italy for sentimental reasons (not for the sake of doing a destination wedding). Most of the immediate family and close friends are very excited to travel to Italy and make a holiday out of it.

If budget allows, we'd love to make it a 3 day event with an informal dinner the night before and a brunch the next day.

The question is: what to do with the people that we'd invite as evening guests if we were to marry in the UK? We feel it would be rude to invite them for the evening only given they'd need to travel.

If money wasn't a problem, we'd happily cover the cost for everyone but unfortunately the price per head for a sit down dinner can be quite high. So, how can we get around it? What would be because a good alternative solution?

Any suggestions would be very welcomed!