Your Haitian Divorce

Friends of mine - Benjamin and Sara - got married the weekend before last. It was a fine occasion, and the ceremony took place, not in a church, as it was a civil occasion, but in "la sala", the hall at Alcúdia town hall, the one where a week later Carme Garcia of the Mallorcan socialists didn't quite tie the knot with Coloma Terrasa of the Partido Popular but made herself instead the eternal bridesmaid (for as long as eternity will last, which will not be long where Carme is concerned).

Some years ago now, other friends had decided that they would get married somewhere exotic. They chose the All-Inclusive Republic of Dominica, sometimes known just as Dominican, one half of the island of Hispaniola that Columbus colonised.

At the time, the early 1990s, transporting yourselves, to say nothing of various family members and/or friends, to far-flung lands in order to say "I do" was still fairly uncommon as well as something distinctly extravagant. There was also an anxiety attached: that getting yourselves to the church on time, or the beach-side tent, might be foiled either by British Airways going on strike or by a hurricane blowing up and carrying the tent off to Florida.

Weddings have now, though, truly gone global. The market for overseas weddings, for those in the UK who are getting hitched, accounts for one in five of all weddings. Mintel's research into this industry, published earlier this year, shows that cost is not a deterrent, indeed it can be an advantage in that it works out cheaper to head off abroad.

For Ben and Sara, the wedding at the town hall was not a case of heading abroad, as they live in Alcúdia. But for an increasing number of couples, Mallorca is now a leading destination for the foreign wedding. And in locations that, despite what Mintel say about the cost advantages of getting married abroad, can cost a fair old wedge.

"Ultima Hora" has looked at the Mallorcan wedding market. Five-star hotels, rural hotels and agrotourism fincas in the island's countryside are the favoured locations for a market that generates annually some two million euros of business and which has grown significantly over the past few years. The German market is by far the greatest, representing some 90% of all the rural and agrotourism weddings, which can, depending on the number of guests and the length of stay, run to a cost of some fifty grand.

There's money to be made from weddings, and the agrotourism industry is making a reasonable earner from them, which will come as something of a relief; the industry has been hit hard by economic crisis, and talk was that the current season would still be "difficult".

Of course, the rules regarding residency and religion influence the nature of the ceremony in Mallorca but, notwithstanding complications that need to be smoothed out by, for example, getting married under civil ceremony in the UK first, any number of places will be happy to be the location for the happy, dream day and happy to be the recipient of a sizeable number of folding notes.

Generally though, the foreign wedding pales into wedding-party insignificance against the vastness of the local wedding occasion. Just one place that does big-time receptions is the mediaeval pile of S'Alqueria d'Es Comte, near to Santa Margalida. I was once there for a Saturday evening meal at the Es Turó restaurant. A table in the inner courtyard was out of the question. So many were the numbers that it was the spillover from the main courtyard. Lord knows how many the numbers were - it was as though the entire population of the town was in attendance. (700 is in fact its capacity.)

The foreign wedding has been good news for the wedding planners as well as the hotels, but what about the divorce planners? Mallorca doesn't have quite the same advantages as the Dominican Republic. There, you can get married one day, decide it was all a mistake, and nip over to the other half of Hispaniola. And you don't need to take the other half. As immortalised in song by Steely Dan - "congratulations, this is your Haitian divorce" - untying the knot can be done without the other's permission. And it doesn't cost much. Less than fifty grand, that's for sure.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.