Are you planning to get married in Barbados? Our Barbados wedding guide covers all of the things you need to plan and organize your wedding in Barbados.
We appreciate that your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life and therefore we have put together a comprehensive section dedicated to your wedding day.
There are many places to choose from when deciding where you will get married. You can have a conventional white wedding in a church, you can have a civil ceremony on a beach, or you could even get married out at sea.
Wedding Receptions, Honeymoons, Entertainment and Florists
We’ve outlined the various types of venues available for receptions and made suggestions for your honeymoon.
Entertainment options can be organized for the wedding reception, as well as created a bride guide to choosing the right flowers for her bouquet and flowers for the bridesmaids.
Photographers, Videographers, and Wedding Cakes
We have also covered how to get a good photographer and videographer so that you will always have those memories of your tropical wedding recorded. We have also looked at the best types of cakes, and no celebration is complete without exquisite food, so there is a section on catering as well.
Shopping and Spas
For the bride and groom, there are many health spas on the island, allowing you to enjoy relaxing massages before your wedding day. The ladies can enjoy waxing, facials, pedicures, manicures, hair, and bridal make-up at any of our beauty salons.
Also, if you are a visitor to the island, then you can enjoy lots of duty-free shopping. This means that you can make significant savings on buying jewelry for your special day and buying the essential rings that you will be looking at every day for the rest of your life. So you can splash out here and get something extraordinary at a suitable price.
Recommended Wedding Planners
You may be nervous about the organization involved in planning your wedding, and if you are a visitor to the island, this has the potential to hamper your plans. However, you can relax and take the easy option and let a wedding coordinator in Barbados take the stress out of your wedding.
The majority of hotels have a wedding coordinator on staff, who can plan your wedding before you arrive on the island.
They will organize the paperwork for you; however, both the bride and groom will need to attend the Ministry of Home Affairs (5th Floor, General Post Office Building, Cheapside, Bridgetown, St. Michael) to obtain a marriage license.
This allows either a minister or a justice of the peace to marry you. This same minister or a justice of the peace will need to give you a letter to take with you, which states their intention of marrying you.
You will need to take along your passports, your original birth certificates if either of you has been married before you will also need to show your previous marriage certificate along with evidence of how that marriage ended.
Have been widowed? A copy of your spouse’s death certificate will need to be presented. If you are divorced, then you will need to show the decree absolute. All of these documents need to be in English, or you need to obtain a certified translation.
If neither the bride or groom is a citizen nor resident of Barbados, the license fee is BDS $200 cash and a $25 stamp, which is available from the post office counter downstairs – please purchase this before you go to the primary office. Return airline tickets must also be presented. If you are a Barbados resident or citizen, the fee is $45, and the stamp is $10.
Legal Age
You must be 16 years of age to be legally married in Barbados, and for persons under 18, you must be accompanied by your parents when making the application.
Residents of Barbados who are regular worshipers at particular churches may opt to have banns of marriage published in church on three successive Sundays, instead of acquiring a marriage license.
Paperwork
Once the paperwork is complete, this usually takes about an hour. Then you can get back to relaxing while your coordinator works with you to select the right venue for the ceremony, whether it is religious or civil service.
They will also liaise with the reception venue, supply sample menus from caterers, book photographers, work to your color scheme for reception decoration and flowers, arrange wedding transportation and arrange to have your wedding cake made.
Barbados is a beautiful tropical island and is paradise on earth; therefore, it is logically an ideal setting for the perfect day of your life when you and your loved one make that life long commitment to one another.
Barbados has always been the perfect destination for celebrity couples. In 2004, golfer Tiger Woods attracted a lot of media attention when he got married at Sandy Lane Hotel on the west coast.
The beauty of a wedding in Barbados is that you are pretty much guaranteed a warm climate, and therefore, your wedding nuptials and celebrations can take place outdoors.
Publisher: Totally Barbados