Booking wedding before Absolute

I wonder if any of you second timers could tell me whether you have booked your weddings before you got your decree absolute? We got engaged a few months ago, and up until now have kept our plans pretty much to ourselves. My divorce is uncontested on the basis of two years separation (although have been apart for three years - just lazy in dealing with the formalities because all finance, houses etc were sorted at that time)! I am at the stage where ex has sent back his copy of the papers and I've applied for a direction of trial, so it could still take a good couple of months yet!

We would like to get married in March/April 2011, so I'm sure that is plenty of time! We are planning a civil ceramony have seen a few venues we like, and really want to book to get our chosen dates, but I am unsure regarding my staus. Our venue states that when we place a provisional booking they will check the registrar can make the date, and then if so it's booked. We have to go to the registary office to give notice but that can't be more than a year in advance, and my absolute should be through by then? Has anyone any experience of booking their wedding before finalising their divorce? Sounds terrible I know but after such a bad marriage I am so looking forward to my future....!

Personally I would wait at least until you get your nisi because then it only takes 6 weeks and you dont need to do anything else.
I would say you do have time to sort it out anyway and I would be stressed with the wait if I booked it before it's sorted.
There is nothing to stop you looking at venues in the meantime though to get you started

HI THERE i just had to say something in here. i also am a second timer and i have started and stuttered my divorce twice now due to finances more than anything. we are planning our wedding full steam ahead. i am about to get divorce up and running again but dont see why you shouldnt plan wedding.my ex and are good friends and have been apart for a while we have 3 kids and i get on with his new partner so we will sort divorce out without problems and therefore i really dont see why as yours is uncontested you cant get on and enjoy organising your wedding good luck hun ;\)

There's nothing to stop you planning things but I wouldn't start making bookings until you are legally able to remarry. Get one marriage out of the way before you get stuck into the next one!

Mine's only just come through and I get married in Dec 09 - been with OH for 3 years now, just one of those things that got put to back of my mind.

Our vicar was fine with it too,just said as long as it was sorted before the service! Lol.

Chill !

I'm going to be the voice of dissent here and say I wouldn't take the chance - my OH's divorce took longer than we thought to come through. He wouldn't even propose to me officially until he was divorced, although we had been looking at rings together!

But it's up to you.

I have to say that we started booking everything in april when it looked like things were going to go through really quickly but I only got my Absolute last Friday - 7 weeks before our wedding booked in Mauritius. It has been quite stressful and the delay was purely due to a backlog at the court so being uncontested won't gaurantee things will go smoothly.
I think its important to make an informed decision, if you do go ahead and start planning then do it in the knowledge that it may take longer than you expect!

im a 2nd timer too and so is my new partner x we have already booked the venue and also the registar before he has finalised his divorce as it is only provisional nothing too lose x to confirm date u want i dont see a problem with it x we were told its ok as long as divorce is through before the wedding itself!!!

I wouldn't book anything personally. As the courts told me, any party can decide to pull out of it at any time up to the absolute being granted, the nisi is there as a kind of 'cooling off period'.

H2b put off proposing to me until the absolute was through as he knew i would have said no, even though i was desperate to marry him. i couldn't start thinking about another wedding whilst still technically married to another man, it just didn't feel right.

me nad h2b have booked our wedding for 2011. he sent his divorce papers into court and she has 3 weeks to change her mind, she had agreed to the divorce. if she changes her mind and says no to it then my h2b can't apply for divorce until next yr again but if this happens he doesn't need her concent for divorce it is automatically granted. so u have nothing to worry about

xx