A vow renewal has no paperwork. Everything else is the same.

Nothing to file, nowhere to file it

A renewal is not a marriage, so no licence is issued and no register is signed. The residency rules that make Spain effectively closed and France a forty-day exercise simply do not reach you. Pick the country for the light and the flights.

The guest list is the actual job

Twenty years of people, most of whom were at the first one. The website carries the dates and the travel, the RSVP writes into the guest list, and plus-ones and households are counted as their own heads — so the number you give the caterer is the number who are coming.

A second budget, without a first wedding's blind spots

Ten categories, each line carrying what you planned against what you have paid, every amount keeping the currency it was entered in. Receipts and the venue contract sit in the vault beside the line they belong to.

A website that can tell the story

A schedule, a travel section and RSVP, under a design you pick — one theme on the free plan, all of them on Premium. It is the one place to say why you are doing this, which for a renewal is usually the whole reason people are getting on a plane.

Seating, for a room that has history in it

Arrange the tables by hand on the free plan, or let Elos seat the room while honouring households and your seat-apart rules — which, twenty years in, you will have more of than you did the first time. Auto-arrange is part of Premium.

One honest caveat

Elos was built for weddings and it says so: the date field is a wedding date and the checklist is a wedding checklist. Nothing underneath cares what you call the day — the guest list, the RSVP, the budget, the seating and the timeline behave identically — but the labels are the labels, and you should know that before you sign up rather than after.

Do you need a licence for a vow renewal?

No. You are already legally married, so there is no licence, no banns, no notice period and no residency requirement — anywhere. That is the single biggest practical difference between planning a renewal abroad and planning a wedding abroad, and it removes the part that takes the longest.

Can we hold a vow renewal in another country?

Yes, and it is far simpler than a wedding there. None of the legal machinery in our country guides applies: no apostille, no nulla osta, no conservatória appointment. The only real constraints are the venue's own rules and your guests' flights.

Can we use Elos to plan a vow renewal?

Yes. The guest list, RSVP, budget, website, seating plan, day-of timeline and registry all work exactly as they do for a wedding. The app's wording says wedding throughout — that is the honest limitation — but nothing behind the labels behaves differently.

What does it cost?

The free plan covers unlimited guests, the budget, the checklist, one website theme, a hand-arranged seating plan and 20 registry items. Premium is €149 once, per celebration, and adds auto-arrange, every website theme, multiple events, cash funds and unlimited Dani.