Getting Married in Croatia: 7 Tips for a Wonderful Experience

Table of Contents

Now here’s an important post for everyone considering getting married in Croatia. Maybe you have your whole wedding already planned, but if that’s not the case, let us help you in making your wedding in Croatia one that you’ll never forget. Hm, wait, you’ll remember any kind of wedding because it’s…wedding.

Anyway, here’s something to help you plan your special day. Let us present you our best tips for getting married in Croatia.

Know what kind of wedding in Croatia would you like to have

First things first. You need to know how you want your wedding in Croatia to look. This is the first and most important step in the whole process, right after choosing your partner. You have a few choices here.

You can have an elopement where only you and your partner are present or, in some cases, your best friends as witnesses. Elopement weddings are usually the easiest to organize since there are not so many people involved.

The other type of wedding you could have is a small intimate wedding with your closest family witnessing your life-changing day. Let’s say the limit for an intimate wedding to be called intimate is 20 persons involved, usually the closest family members from both your and your partner’s side.

And finally, you can have a classic wedding with more people involved. The only thing that limits the number of your guests is your wallet depth. These large weddings are the hardest to organize, but with the right persons hired as wedding planners, you shouldn’t have any troubles.

What kind of persons are you and your partner

The second most important part of getting married in Croatia. Why it is not the first? Well, what kind of wedding comes to your mind when you think about it? All of us have our vision for the wedding. Maybe your dream wedding (out of the ones mentioned in the section above) is an adventure elopement with you and your partner somewhere in the mountains.

If that’s the case, then stick to it. If you would like to have elopement then don’t end up organizing an event for 50 persons you don’t even want. It’s the worst you can do for your wedding day. It’s a day for your partner and you.

Choose together how would you like for it to look. If you want other people involved, you can always make some kind of event when you come back home. But your wedding is your wedding and it should look like how you imagine it.

Choose the right time of the year

Now you’re 2 steps closer to your wedding in Croatia. The next part is choosing the right time of the year for your wedding. Since Croatia is a beautiful country with sea, mountains and other marvels of nature, any season can be a good choice.

But let us say that 99% of all couples choose summer for their wedding in Croatia. There are a few reasons for that. First of all, the weather is most predictable during the summer with a high chance of a nice (and hot) day. All other seasons have less predictable weather. Also, all the services you might need for your wedding are working.

Still, we would not recommend the middle of the summer for getting married in Croatia because it can be too hot outside. May, June, and September would be our suggestions. The weather is still nice and it’s not as hot as in the middle of summer.

Summer and the months near summer are best if you want to organize a wedding with other guests involved. During this period you won’t have trouble finding open restaurants or places to stay at.

On the other hand, if you want the elopement with just 2 of you, any season works for you. You just need to think about what you want out of your wedding in Croatia. If you like mountains, you won’t choose the summer months because hiking in summer is penance.

Choose the right venue

Now that you have solved the first steps, it’s time to cross another list entry. This one is connected with a previous one. You need to think about the time of the year when choosing the venue for your wedding.

If you dream of a small intimate beach wedding, you’ll choose the summer months, late spring, or early autumn. Having a beach wedding in Croatia during the winter months is not a good idea. If you are interested in getting married in the Croatian mountains, then any season works (although we don’t suggest summer).

Dubrovnik wedding elopement location packages dubrovnik photographer videographer 24 | Croatia Elopement Photographer and Videographer
Here is our list of 9 beautiful intimate wedding venues in Croatia:

When it comes to venues for getting married in Croatia, you have numerous choices. Croatia has forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, the sea…it has everything. And all these venues are best during certain parts of the year. Forests are best in autumn, mountains are good in autumn and winter, and places near the sea are great during the summer months.

Official things to take care of when getting married in Croatia

If you want your Croatia wedding act to be recognized in your country, there are some legal things you need to take care of. The one most important thing is the officiant, a translator and at least 2 witnesses (can be basically anybody, even the photographers of your wedding). And that’s it. Yes, you’ll need to do some paperwork, and we suggest you hire a wedding planner to help you with that since it would be hard to do it by yourself.

There are also some fees included in this part of the story. You’ll have to pay for the officiant, translator, and wedding planner to help you. The officiant’s price varies according to the time of the day, day in the week, and distance from the officiant’s office. Overall, expect the prices in the range of 700 to 1000 Euros.

If you are planning to have your wedding high in the mountains, for example, these prices can be even higher, and also have in mind that not every officiant will be ready to accept your adventure, if the adventure is what you have in mind.

intimate destination wedding dubrovnik jasmina matthew love and ventures photography 32 | Croatia Elopement Photographer and Videographer
Here is our list of the top 5 locations for your adventure elopement ceremony in Croatia

It’s best to start organizing this bureaucratic stuff as soon as you can to avoid any headaches bureaucracy might give you. Another option that many couples choose is hiring a symbolic officiant. On the other hand, if you are planning a small elopement with just you and your partner exchanging your vows somewhere in nature, you can forget this whole part.

That’s the beauty of elopement weddings.

Hiring all the necessary staff

We’re coming to the end of your ‘getting married in Croatia’ planning process. This might be the last entry, but it’s as important as any other on this list.

Hiring all the necessary staff for your wedding in Croatia is very important and it needs to be done as soon as possible. Many couples wish to have a wedding similar to yours and some dates are booked for a year in advance. So think today about something that will happen in a year or so.

You don’t need to book and hire every separate person that will be involved in your wedding. You just need to book a wedding planner and he/she will do the rest for you. You just need to be clear about what you expect out of your wedding in Croatia and they will act accordingly so everything is prepared when you come to Croatia. A wedding planner is a person that will be along with you during your whole planning process and your wedding day.

You can also discuss all the issues we brought out in this post with your wedding planner. Their job is to make your wedding perfect.

Getting married in Croatia in a different way

Maybe you want a totally different wedding in Croatia. One that doesn’t include any of the official things, no wedding planners… You just want you and your partner to have a great time. But since you come to a foreign country you still want someone to guide you around.

Well, we promote that kind of wedding. We call them weddings but in fact, they are experiences. Some call them elopements. We are adventure elopement photographers, videographers, and adventure guides and we have been doing these for some time now.

Adventurous Hvar Wedding Elopement Love and Ventures 011 | Croatia Elopement Photographer and Videographer
Browse through our guide to elope in Croatia

Although we are not wedding planners, we can still help you with some aspects of organizing your elopement in Croatia.

If you’re into this kind of wedding experience, feel free to roam around our website. You’ll find a lot of information about us and our work there. If there are still some questions left unanswered or you want to talk about this way of getting married in Croatia with us, contact us anytime.

share this story

Hello there!

We are Mario & Andrea, a photo+video team, specialised in adventure elopements and intimate weddings all across Europe. Contact us if you plan an elopement or intimate wedding with a pinch of adventure.