A number of hotels on the island will offer to organize your wedding ceremony for you and this number seems to be growing on a daily basis, but we would seriously urge you to consider this option very, very carefully as well. Why?
Well, a hotel is excellent at providing accommodation, food & beverage, entertainment, decorations; that is, after all, what they specialize in and are trained at.
They are certainly not, however, experts at organizing weddings and the vitally important paperwork that goes with a wedding. Remember that every nationaity in the world has a different set of requirements for a legal marriage to take place.
A hotel will never be an expert at organizing wedding ceremonies and handling the legal paperwork . They will never be in a position have all the data required for every nationality of traveler and keep up with any changes to that data, because they do not specialize in weddings and marriage. Yet, the need for complete accuracy in terms of the pre and post wedding paperwork is vitally important to anyone wanting a legal marriage in Bai.
The priority of a hotel is accommodation, food and beverage sales and, if you are wanting to be legally married in Bali, we strongly urge you not to rely upon a hotel sales, reservation or public relations staff member to handle it for you.
To a hotel employee, organising a wedding is just a job they'll do if asked or instructed to do so and not something they know very well. It is to them, just another way of making more money from a guest.
Our research has shown that serious issues can arise and indeed have arisen when a couple of two different religions and/or two different nationalities or circumstances a(eg: divorced, widowed) are presented.
The majority of hotels are unable to give the correct information for any 'out of the ordinary' situations in order that the couples' marriage may proceed without problems.
Because the hotels offer a wedding service generally just as a 'sideline' or a 'optional extra', there is an enormous risk that their information about requirements, prices & procedures for church & government officials, Consulates and Embassies are not up to date.
The last thing you want is to arrive in Bali and find you do not have all the required documentation needed to be married in the way you wish to be married.
You will find that the majority of deluxe/5 star hotels on the island, knowing the enormous complexities which can arise, recommend their clients utilize the services of a professional wedding organizer. Some are even connected to a reliable organizer and will simply have you communicate directly with them about the ceremony itself whilst they take care of what they do best ie: accommodation, decorations, food & beverage etc.
Hotels will often recommend one particular company which specializes in weddings for Japanese to their Japanese clientele and another (one or more) which specialize in western nationality weddings to their western clientele. Should you obtain information from these properties you will note which companies they recommend.
Some quality hotels will actually offer a couple of different companies to their enquiring couples and we at AWEDDINGINBALI.COM support this idea since it gives couples the opportunity to approach each company recommended and ultimately choose the one they find offers the best service, ie: the best in terms of accuracy, speed, attention to detail etc. in response to your initial enquiriy and to further follow-up queries.
Remember, the purpose of AWEDDINGINBALI.COM.com is not to recommend or deflect from one system, one hotel or one wedding company in particular but merely to bring these important points to your attention so that your wedding in Bali will be handled with perfection!.
Our intention is to give interested couples the useful information needed to make an informed and wise decision about how to best organize a wedding in Bali or who to entrust with the very important task of organizing your wedding in Bali on your behalf.
