Hi Karin
I’d be interested to hear what weddings are like in NL.
Oh I am really not the person to ask, as I am not part of community where people get married. I am 37 and I had 3 weddings in the last 10 years (Ok, I am not a social butterfly).
I think registered partnerships are also popular. The Dutch are very pragmatic, organizing a wedding is quite a hassle. If you want a party with your family, have a party ;-)
I think the standard is:
Go to city hall / church to have the ceremony, I think wedding venues are a bigger thing n the US. There are plenty throughout NL, but also a lot of people who do everything at city hall. An employee of city hall is the officiant. There are always moments at city hall where you can get married for free.
Then you have a lunch/dinner en then a party. Somewhere in between the couple goes to take their pictures.
It's normal to make a difference between people you invite for the entire day, or the ceremony & party. You can specify on the invitation for what you invite the guests.
For gifts, as most people have already lived together, we don't have registries to get household stuff. Most common gift is money, and if you as the couple want to receive money as a gift you put a little envelope icon on the invitation. If the guest wants to be funny they can wrap the money in something sticky / gory (think a box filled with €50 in pennies, saw dust and syrup).
1. The wedding of a gay couple. Couple was in their mid/late twenties, and together for 5-10 years. This was a day wedding with maybe 20 guests. We went to city hall, had the ceremony which took 20 - 30 minutes. And then we left to a nearby small cafe to have something to drink, they had rented it out. Their aunt had baked a cake. I do not remember what they did with presents. I think they unpacked them there in front of us. I am pretty sure they paid for all of it themselves. They both bought new suits, but with it in mind that they could wear the suits later.
2. Re-wedding for a couple who got married abroad, as a large part of the bride's family was not living in NL. They had to go to city hall here to make their marriage recognized in NL as well. And because not all their Dutch friends could travel abroad / weren't invited, they made this a bit bigger with a ceremony at city hall. For the bride a good excuse to wear her wedding dress again. And after that we went the parents of the groom's house with homemade snacks.
My suspicion is that the wedding abroad was paid for by the parents and was more in line with what people consider traditional weddings. The dress was at least poofy.
The re-wedding was on a Monday morning, so I guess it was a free ceremony at city hall, and homemade snacks don't have to cost a lot, so the couple probably paid for that.
3. Was the wedding of a distant cousin. We were invited as ceremony/party guests. We went to city hall, then they left with their dinner-guests to have dinner. Me and my mom had dinner in town, and then we left to the party location for the rest of the evening. It could be my aunt & uncle paid for some, but as the couple was older and together for a longer time, I think they already had at least 1 kid, I assume they paid for everything themselves.