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Dear Sir/Madame:
My fiance and I are planning on getting married during the week of July 24-28th in St. Thomas. we would like to be married in a church or chapel. The denomination could be either Catholic or Protestant ( particularly Baptist or Episcoplian).
We are trying to make arrangements for this. If you could give me the emails/ phone numbers to some churches, that would be most helpful.
Thank You,
Sherry M. Lewis
Getting married in a catholic Church is no simple matter. It could never happen is a time period of a week. You will need to apply to the Church and classes are a must. Protestant on the other hand should be easier. I believe you need to be on the island for at least 7 days prior to a wedding. Best bet is to look up some people who arrange marriages for you. They can get most of the paperwork done for you and they will walk you through the entire wedding thing from start to finish.
Since all the paperwork, applications and legwork can be done before your arrival, there is no requirement for being on the island other than the day you marry. The Catholic Church may have different requirements to satisfy their requirements. You can file an application via mail with applicable fees and required documentation (several wedding sites on the web have all the information you need) and pick up the license the day of the marriage. The coordinators can help with transportation, official, witnesses and the like but it is not hard to coordinate it yourself for a simple ceremony either in the courthouse, in a religious setting or even on a beach!
Hello,
For USVI weddings.
The marriage license application fee is $50 ($25 for application fee and $25 for the license) and there is an 8 day waiting period, which can be waived depending on circumstances. Marriages performed before a court judge can cost $200. Court marriages are performed on weekdays by appointment. Religious ceremonies are also available, but must be arranged directly with church officials. If either party has been divorced, a certified copy of the divorce decree must be presented. If you are requesting a marriage license through the mail, without the help of a local wedding consulting company, then you will have to pick up the license yourself on arrival. This can only be done of regular business days.
You can go to the web site for more information https://www.vinow.com/general_usvi/Wedding/
For a list of churches with numbes you can try the yellow pages http://www.usviyellowpages.org and look up churches, houses of worship....
Catholic churches:
There are four Catholic Churches on St. Thomas. They are The Holy Family Church (340)775-1650 located in Tutu; Our Lady of Perpetual Help (340)774-0885 located in Mafolie; Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral (340)774-0201 located in Charlotte Amalie and St. Anne's (340)714-1101 located in Frenchtown.
As for getting this down in a Catholic Church. Yes the Catholic Church requires courses. However they dont have to be performed in the Catholic Church on St. Thomas, as you would not have enough. However what can be done, is you do the courses at a Catholic church you attend or close to you, the priest writes a letter for you, saying that you have completed the courses and other documents the church might want, then you bring these papers to the Catholic Priest that you already should have communicated with on St. Thomas who would have told you what he needed from you and then you get married in St. Thomas. You should call asap so that you can get paperwork in place.
The actual application for license in the court you can do on your own as well. The information can be found on the vinow.com link I gave at the beginning of this post.
Good Luck.
--Islander
