Twice As Nice Geneva Wedding | Part 1 The Civil Ceremony

Kristell + Dominique
Geneva, Switzerland
January 2012

Two Weddings Are twice as Nice

Sometimes you need two weddings. Now before you bristle and give me a ration of shit like the gals on The Knot have done, hear me out. If you don’t already know, Hindsight Groom and I had two weddings, one on each coast. It was important for us to have everyone we loved present when we exchanged our vows. His dad couldn’t travel and it would have been a financial burden for most of our east coast friends and family to travel to California. So in the interest of our guests we had two weddings. Fast-forward three years and I still have a soft spot in my heart for twice-as-nice brides.

Two Weddings Are the Norm in Europe

In countries where the separation of church and state demands a civil ceremony, two wedding are normal. Couples marry legally in a civil ceremony, then choose to have another (religious) ceremony after the legal one. In fact, a couple MUST be legally married before getting married in the church in Switzerland and France.

Stuff You’ll Love!

Today’s wedding is the first (civil) ceremony in Geneva. Look for the second wedding in Chamonix tomorrow! I want to point out a couple of things I LOVE.

The photobooths. They’re the perfect way for your guests to uniquely express themselves and they can tell the story of you and your family. Kristell had adorable photo booths from both of her weddings. Love them!
The exchange of gifts. The couple didn’t exchange rings during the civil ceremony, so they decided to exchange something else to “seal the deal”.

“We transformed my engagement ring that I wouldn’t wear anymore (it was in white gold and our wedding bands were made of pink gold). We went to a jeweler, a real one, and he suggested we melt the gold and keep the diamonds to do something totally different: a bracelet.

“My husband had a Tag Heuer watch (very very very good Swiss watch). As I didn’t have enough money for our engagement, I couldn’t buy him a watch (that’s what we usually offer to men for an engagement in Switzerland) so I got him a big one combining engagement and wedding gift.”