Anyone done the legal wedding months in advance of the "big day"?

Sleepy

A friend recently pointed out that according to Irish tax law if you marry during the year, you can ask to be jointly assessed from the start of that tax-year. Since my fiancée is a stay-at-home mother, this would mean I'll be entitled to her tax credits of €3,540 when we're married.

We got to thinking last night that were we to have a legal wedding at the end of this year, and continue with the "big day" in February of 2013 as we have planned (and booked the hotel for) that we'd be able to claim those tax credits for this year and use it to pay for a good chunk of our wedding or put it towards a nice honeymoon (something we didn't think we could afford).

Has anyone any experience of doing anything like this? I don't want our wedding day to be about money or tax credits and really would prefer the celebration of our marriage with our friends and family to also be the legal side of things but when there's such a strong financial incentive to do otherwise, I'm wondering if we can afford the luxury of such niceties. Has anyone else just done the legal thing seeing it as a bit of paperwork and held their "actual" wedding a couple of months later? Curious to hear if it affected your enjoyment of the process of getting married?

Moonbeam

We got married in Nov 2012 and the "big day" is Feb 2013.
You can only claim the credits from your marriage date and not for the whole year as far as I know.
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it2.html#section2

Sleepy

That'll teach me to google things I hear in the pub before making big decisions about them!

I presume you meant Nov 2011? Did you do anything on the day or just treat it as paperwork? Does it take anything away from your excitement about the "big day"? Do you feel like it'll diminish things in any way?

Moonbeam

Not at all.
You still have all the stress
We had parents and 2 of his siblings to dinner and stayed in the hotel after.
I Wore a wedding dress not my dream dress but a gorgeous one.
It was so relaxed,my baby was in my hands as I said my vows ,my big girl (2 year old) held my hand and it was a lovely day.

gmf1024

From the revenue site
"A refund of tax for the year of marriage or registration of civil partnership would normally only arise where a couple are taxed at different tax rates and one spouse or civil partner could benefit from the unused standard rate band or from some of the unused tax credits of the other spouse or civil partner"
You will get the tax credit as if married for the full year. We got married in 2010 and this is what happened.
If you ring the Revenue they will confirm this to you.

fungun

We did it, registry office day was a token celebration, just parents and went for lunch afterwards; had no bearing at all on our feelings for the big day

Gatica

I think if it's gonna be such a big impact on your finances as a means of saving for the wedding, why not?
Make it casual. If you don't wanna tell family, have two strangers as your witnesses or friends who won't blab. Sign the paperwork, go for dinner. Think no more of it til you're getting "married" by a solemniser/minister person next year!

tatli_lokma

are you getting married in a church? if so, and you marry civilly beforehand some priests may not marry you in a church as you are already married civilly. In which case you would need to go down the blessing route, and again, not all priests will bless a civil marriage.
Check this out before doing anything

Gatica

going by Sleepy's previous posts on other threads, I'd say he wouldn't go the Church route, and I believe has Tom Colton booked for the ceremony?
I gotta get a life and stop being on boards so much!

kdouglas

gmf1024 wrote: »

From the revenue site
"A refund of tax for the year of marriage or registration of civil partnership would normally only arise where a couple are taxed at different tax rates and one spouse or civil partner could benefit from the unused standard rate band or from some of the unused tax credits of the other spouse or civil partner"
You will get the tax credit as if married for the full year. We got married in 2010 and this is what happened.
If you ring the Revenue they will confirm this to you.

I think the sentence above that is relevant;

Any refund due is only from the date of marriage or registration of civil partnership and will be calculated at the end of that tax year.

So if you got married now (July), you are still taxed seperately until the end of this year. Next year, you can share tax credits and will see the benefit in your pay cheque. If you apply for a refund, it will be from the date of the wedding until end of year.

Sleepy

Gatica wrote: »

going by Sleepy's previous posts on other threads, I'd say he wouldn't go the Church route, and I believe has Tom Colton booked for the ceremony?
I gotta get a life and stop being on boards so much!

Very close. It's a colleague of Tom's that we have booked for our wedding...

Whatever about many of the non practising or á-la-carte "Catholics" who choose to marry in a church, I think it would be especially hypocritical of me to do so! That said, was my other half a practising Catholic and a priest prepared to marry us without me taking part in the religious parts or either of us taking the vows to indoctrinate our children in their faith, I'd go along with it. Of course, the Catholic Church doesn't allow it's priests to be so tolerant, so even then I'm afraid, it would still have to be a civil wedding. Luckily, my fiancée isn't religious either.