Help me plan my wedding - in church in Poland, with a 2 day wedding party - Zabrze

My Polish fiancee and I are planning to get married in September 2015. She wants a nice traditional wedding in church, with a 2 day wedding party near the church (basically a 30 min drive or so). I am having a hard time getting ideas on where to have the wedding party or to house the guests for the 2 days. The church is in Zabrze, a smaller city maybe 30 minutes from Katowice. I have a 30 to 40k zl budget to get everything sorted out so some good Samaritan's help would be greatly appreciated.

Are you thinking about doing the actual getting married bit in Poland? If so, get ready for a crash course in Polish red tape and multiple trips here to do paperwork. You might want to consider getting legally married in the UK and just getting a blessing in Polish church.


Sorry but I've never been anywhere within a half-hour drive of Zabrze that I'd want to go back to.


The best advice I can give you is to tell everybody right now and always that you do not have a grosze more than 30,000 to spend on the whole thing: that way there might just be a chance that you can bring it in for under 40,000.

Just ceremony and the wedding party. I will prefer to have the paperwork done elsewhere.

Location-wise I don't really have much of a choice.

Noted on the third advice. Thanks!

I know where Zabrze is, my family lives there, unfortunately it's quite polluted since it's part of the industrial area, so it would be good to host the wedding bit further from the main city


Unfortunately that area looks quite gloomy...

I found this listing of wedding venues in Zabrze :
lokale-wesele.pl/lokalizacje/miasto/Zabrze.html

Thanks mate, you have my gratitude.

Not gonna happen I'm afraid, and it's going to be even more awkward if you're not Catholic.
If you aren't you will have to...no choice.....be married in a registry office in the UK and then you can have a wedding here in Poland.

You'll need to meet a priest in Zabrze and he'll be able to fill you in on everything that needs to be done.

Also, Zabrze....man, are you sure you want your mates and family to go to that dump? I live in Katowice and it's a rough kip, but it's paradise compared to Zabrze.

I'd be trying to convince her of Gliwice instead, way, way nicer and less than 15mins from Zabrze.
If she gives you some nonsense about having to get married in her parish....she doesn't need to do that, her local priest will write a wee letter saying she can get married in any Catholic Church, but she will have to ask for it..........and make a small donation to the priest. I know this coz my missus had to do it.

There's a good few hotels around Gliwice:

However, there's a lot less around Zabrze:

Wedding venues are ten-a-penny in Poland, so you won't have a problem find ingsomewhere to have the reception though, but get her to google them.

How many guest do you reckon will come?

30,000-40,000K zloty.....that could pay for the party, the food and the drink.....at a stretch....depends on how many guests you expect.

Food will cost at least 200zl per person...in city areas it could be closer to 300zl per person....drinks not included, plus let's say you have 100 guests, that's 100 bottles of vodka, that's around 2000zl, then the mixers, coca-cola, a multitude of juices. The cakes cost a fortune. Dress, suit. etc. Band, anything from 2000-8000zl (and you get what you pay for, cheaper they are the worse they are) You'll need beer because you'll be bringing foreign guests. My wedding, we went through 6 kegs of beer! At cost price, I think it cost roughly 2000zl, plus other spirits that you'll need to provide, whisky, gin, rum, brandy, champagne, wine. The venue can provide them, but you'll save a few bob doing it yourself.

I got hitched a year ago, we had around 130 guests, we paid for their Saturday night stay in the hotel....Friday night they paid for themselves...and when all was said and done, we paid about 60,000zl for everything (reception alone was around 30,000zl)........but the wedding was down in Bieszczady, where it's a helluva lot cheaper than around Katowice.

You can do it you just need an understanding (read as money grabbing) priest they can do it but it involves a letter from the bishop

Exactly, we for example got married in Krzeszów and not in Wałbrzych. Wałbrzych in the olden times comparable to Zabrze. There is no church law stating you have to marry in the local parish. It might require a "koperta" of sorts though...As does everything in the Polish Church... I don't know if you are RC...If you are, go to your local parish wherever you live now and start the procedure.

We married way back in a civilian ceremony in Belgium, and 3 months later in church in Poland.
The church part started with documents to be completed (in Latin) in my local Flemish parish. Our local priest sent everything to the bishop...and then it went to the archbishop...and in the end it all ended up in my wife's parish in Poland.

The local Polish priest will foremost think of the money he will not get. So pay him and get a referal to the parish you want to marry.

lots of good advice here.

i had a 2 day wedding, it was fantastic.

something i didn't read on here that I did.....get a pig. yep, a big giant slow cooked pig. have it delivered around 01:00, by then everyone's drunk and ready to eat lots of greasy pork. it was a huge hit.


we didn't bother with any other spirit but vodka. you're in Poland, do as they do. Our wedding was vodka, red/white wine, and a couple kinds of beer.


yeah, we looked into doing it in Poland and quickly realized it's a total a$$ ache and just did it a few months later during a visit to the states. in the meantime, we planned our big bash in Poland to be a couple months after that.

as far as where the wedding is, assuming it's inside, the location shouldn't matter too much assuming the venue is a good one, everyone's completely hammered within the first hour anyhow. i guess any outside wedding photos will be left with much to be desired.....but like the OP said, he doesn't seem to have much of a choice as far as what city to do this in.

Very peculiar wedding you had Fuzzy. Ours years ago, but I cannot recall anybody being drunk one hour into the whole ceremony.

Hi Axwell,

I'm from Zabrze and have been to several weddings during this year. I'd say the nicest church is St. Mary's, it's quite big and really nice looking. But I suppose you guys have already something selected. I don't want it to sound like an advertisement but the one I liked most was the one in paniowki.restauracja-bialydom.pl

One of my closest friends had his wedding there and from what I know they were really happy. He said though that they got the cakes and the main wedding cake from separate confectionery stores same with the dj ( That restaurant can provide most of the stuff if someone wants to ). The wedding was ~40k. It's actually a straight road from St. Mary's church which was really fortunate.

A thing to remember is that most of the good wedding places you'd need to book 1,5 year before to make sure you'll get it.

Reread your post and noticed that you plan a 2 day wedding - not sure if 40k would be enough, all depends on the number of guests, the one I mentioned has around 70-80.

Hi I'm a professional adult magician living in krakow, I'm native English but can communicate in polish to. I have been performing at functions and weddings over 7 years and it's a great way to keep your guests entertained while waiting. If your interested email me markjhill@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks everyone for the great ideas. Keep the replies coming.


I am not RC right now, I am a Protestant at the moment who is under going RCIA. I will be a RC by the time we have the ceremony. We will most probably get legally married in my country (outside the EU) just because it's such a pain to get everything translated. I have been reading that the translation and getting the paperwork (no lawful impediment documents etc) sorted out will take a few months to maybe even a year. Since my fiancee will eventually move to my country and apply for permanent residency, I just don't see a need to have everything eventually translated back to English.

I am more concerned and piqued about the consequences of getting married at a marriage registrar in my country. What implications will there be on the actual ceremony at the church? I have heard that a different ceremony is performed etc.

The wedding party and banquet can be held outside of Zabrze, nearby towns and cities but must be within a reasonable amount of distance; say 30-45min drive. I know Zabrze can be considered a rougher city but ultimately it's where she grew up. I think she feels a certain attachment to where she grew up so who am I to judge. She wants to get married in her parish, despite knowing she doesn't have to. So I won't really take that from her.

We are expecting 70-80 guests. Classy, traditional, nothing too fancy. I will probably insist that all gifts be given as cash. But I am not expecting too much. I'll be quite happy if we can get 40% of what we spent back. But 30-40k zl. That's how much I am willing to allocate out of pocket. But I am also a pragmatic person who won't pay for stuff that we probably won't need. I will rather use the money to offset the cost of purchase of our first home. But all in all, what I will spend in Poland is a fraction of what I will be spending in my home country.


I will seriously take this into consideration. Sounds like an awesome idea.

Fuzzy: How did you eventually sort out your legal paperwork or did you skipped the whole translating shenanigan?


frd: My fiancee mentioned the same place. I think she was quoted 220 zl per person for each day and that was without booze. I think it's quite pricey all things considered. But since you are from the area, I would like to ask you or anyone with an in-depth understanding of the wedding party/banquet. Is it always a 2 day event? I am getting the impression that that is not the norm.

I am not an expert into canonical law, but wouldn't you have to do also First Communion and Confirmation?
Anyway good luck with your wedding, I hope it will be a great day :)

From my experience these 2-day weddings are getting out of fashion - maybe on the countryside they linger on. The ones we went to during the past years always were one evening.

My sister-in-law and her Church of England bf had to do it that way. The ceremony in Poland was a tiny, tiny bit different, most people didn't even notice.

But it has to be different if the marriage is between an RC and a member of a diff religion.
It really won't make any diff and the priest in Poland may insist on it. I didn't have to do it because a) I live in Poland and b) I was brought up RC so I had all the documents to say I'd been baptised, confirmed, etc.


I get ya man, totally understandable.
Personally, I just didn't want my Irish friends and family to come to what is probably the ugliest part of Poland and think I was living in a compete wreck of a place, so we had it in the mountains.


The Church and the Polish authorities won't accept documents that aren't translated. You'll need a 'sworn' translator of Polish. So basically someone with a Master's or higher in Polish language, one of your Polish speaking mates won't be able to do it.

You can hire them easily though, loads of translation companies here and all of them could help you out.


As Sob says, they're going out of fashion, but certainly happen. Mine was 2 days. On the 2nd day we paid for their breakfast and a meal around noon and booze, (what was left from the previous day) we told them the room was being closed at 5pm, so most people started leaving after the noon meal....most had long trips back to Katowice or a place to catch back to Ireland.

At most 2 days wedding you give out some of the remaining vodka/cakes to guests as they leave, so whatevers left you can give a bottle to your 'favourite' people as they leave ;)

The 2nd day can go 2 ways though, sometimes it's only for immediate family. But with you probably having a ton of foreigners coming I doubt you can exclude the Poles and entertain the foreigners until they have to leave for the airport.

You said the food will be 220zl, so it will of course be higher if you lay on the food for the following day, so I reckon you're looking at 260-280zl per person. Plus the drink, beer, vodka, wine, etc. As I said before though say yourself a few bob and organise this yourself. Get you missus to join the cash-and-carry shop Makro, you'll get all the booze there. Re: beer, get the hotel to order you a few kegs and pay cost price for them. They should be OK with that.

There's one huge advantage for you not living here prior to the wedding; you won't have to attend those god-awful boring pre-marriage course events. I did in total of about 6 hours of crap with priests and nuns, all in Polish and mostly about how evil abortion and contraception is. Spent of it playnig Scrabble or Angry Birds on the phone, so you're dodging a bullet with that man.

after the ceremony, dude. it's a 2 day wedding, the one hour at the church doesn't even count.


gotta translate stuff, no way around it.

All weddings I've been to were a one day event, and I don't know personally anyone who had a 2 day wedding. Some time ago I only connected these 2 day weddings with families from the countryside, like highlanders for instance. But I heard about some city folks who had a 2 day. I'd say 1 day weddings are a more usual thing, but I don't have a very in depth knowledge of the subject...

Buying booze separately happens most of the time, people find their own places for that, and usually can buy it for a much smaller price in for instance supermarkets or wholesellers...

I meant the same, one hour into the party. Never experienced a wedding party where guests already were drunk one hour into it.


I heard that the Górale sometimes have 3-day parties. Anybody has been to one of these?

All the ones in my ex's family were three-day events (or at least the evening before the wedding, then the wedding day and then a long long lunch the next day). I've also been to a couple of two-dayers in Warsaw.

I'm sorry to hear that. No worries, you still got time.

My friends are not that kind of people and I can live with that perfectly :)

HAHA, "not that kind of people." aaaaahhh yes.

Call a wedding planner. many of them now offer servicesoutside your country. They will help you plan things accordingly. Check out this website of one of the leading event planners superiorevents.ca . It is based in Toronto.

Hallo, Axwell! I am a singer, and I am willing to help you as well. Though opera is my main domain, I also do soul, jazz & gospel/christian music. Among other activities, I also perform during wedding ceremonies and after- parties, together with harpist and/or violinist, trumpeter or other talented musicians from all of Poland. Considering very unequal level of musical maestry and repertoire among organists in various churches, IMHO assuring the best possible musical setting for this extraordinary day may be of significant priority. And it is the very opportunity I am going to offer you- performance of several pieces of choice during the ceremony. Repertoire may comprise traditional pieces like one of "Ave Marias" (entrance) and "Panis Angelicus" (during Holy Communion), with an addition of perhaps your- and your mate's favourite song-on- demand (before arranging - I sometimes make sure with the priest responsible for ceremony- they are sometimes picky as for the repertoire not to be overly 'secular'.

In case you would consider, please mail me at kazimierczak @ gmail . com, as I am rather not a frequent guest here.

PS: So glad you will have an opportunity to get to know some Polish - and Silesian- 'climates':) People there are really great, helpful and friendly (of course there is no place in whole world without thugs). Food- exceptional. My very good friends are living in Zabrze and I always enjoy their company and hospitality. My other friends include Bytom's The Silesian Opera ballerina and sopranist.