TRAVEL INSIDER : Overseas Marriage Ceremonies Have a Certain ‘Ring’ for Some Couples : Matrimony: Wedding travel specialists help Americans exchange vows in foreign destinations.

Some people shuffle through Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny and don’t give it a second thought. Others pass an hour strolling and sniffing. Then there are Tambra Riggs’ clients: the ones with the formal wear and the ring-bearers, perspiring amid the wisteria.

Riggs is president of Weddings Around the World, a Dallas-based consulting firm that last year arranged 300 exchanges of vows on several continents. If all goes according to plan, two of her customers--a pair of art dealers--will be wed May 25 among the water lilies and greenery made famous by the French Impressionist painter.

For the reception, says Riggs, “we’re thinking about Honfleur, a very significant port town for the Impressionist painters.”

This is not as strange as it may seem. Wedding and travel specialists say that so many Americans are now marrying each other abroad that a new breed of travel industry specialist has arisen to handle their logistics. In popular honeymoon destinations such as Hawaii and the Caribbean, the trade has been further fueled by resort hotels offering special wedding packages.

“It’s usually a three- to six-month lead time, and sometimes three to six days,” says Pat Gleason, director of romance (yes, it really says that on her business card) at the Westin Maui. “Part of it is because our society is so mobile. I’ve done weddings when the groom was living in New York, his family was from Minnesota and the bride’s whole family was Japanese. It’s a nice midpoint for people who have to come from around the world.”

Some examples of the trend:

* At the Westin Maui in Hawaii (808-667-2525), Gleason estimates that she has organized more than 600 weddings since the hotel opened in August, 1987. May looks to be one of her busiest so far, with 18 ceremonies scheduled as the month began.

The Westin’s wedding package prices, excluding accommodations, run from $500 (for use of the grounds only) to $1,625 (for a cleric, leis, flowers, a guitarist who will play the Hawaiian Wedding Song, wedding cake, a bottle of champagne, complimentary flutes, services of a photographer and a leather photo album). Most customers are couples traveling without traveling companions, Gleason said, although in January, 64 people arrived to celebrate the wedding of a couple from Northridge.

* San Mateo tour operator Marina Taylor, who has been arranging weddings in Greece since 1986 through her firm Unique Tours (800-543-5527), reports that 1992 is her best year so far.

“We already have 20 couples up to the month of June,” says Taylor. “These people primarily are more mature couples. If they are not mature, this is their second marriage. And they have the money.”

Taylor says business has increased every year except 1991, when the Persian Gulf War paralyzed traffic to the Mediterranean. For services that include handling paperwork, setting a site, retaining a cleric and providing witnesses, Taylor’s rates begin at $475 for an Athens ceremony. Air fares and accommodations are separate.

* At the couples-only Sandals Resorts in Jamaica (800-726-3257), wedding coordinator Monica Rodriguez reports that matrimonial business has roughly doubled in the last four years. On a typical day, she estimates, the Sandals staff handles 24 ceremonies combined in its six hotels.

Starting June 1, the $250 Sandals wedding package includes a manicure, pedicure and massage for the bride or groom, a cleric, witnesses, flowers, three bottles of champagne, cake, a video recording of the ceremony, 5-by-7-inch photographs, a wedding dinner, continental breakfast in bed the following morning, and an hourlong morning or sunset cruise.

* Though the Damien Waring Estate on Oahu (800-648-5040) generally limits itself to one wedding per day, an estimated 150 couples a year are married on the site, usually in the half-acre property’s oceanfront tropical gardens. Owner Lurlene Waring sees to details and charges fees from $590 (which covers cleric, witnesses, recorded music, still photography and other details) to $3,000. Accommodations are not included.

* At Weddings Around the World (800-648-7000), Riggs reports growth of about 25% a year since she started business in 1987. Three of every four weddings she plans are in Europe, the remainder scattered among Mexico, the Caribbean, the Pacific, Asia and elsewhere.

In April, the company staged a ceremony in a Scottish castle. And once the Giverny garden vows are said, Riggs will turn fuller attention to a June wedding in Venice for a pair of American movie-industry types. Weddings Around the World charges $75 an hour with a six-hour minimum, and has submitted bills from about $1,000 to more than $100,000.

At first glance--and sometimes at second and third glances--a wedding abroad seems like a strange way to behave in a recession. But if the vows on foreign soil are replacing a costly wedding and reception at home, the travel professionals argue, the occasion could actually save money and stretch out the honeymoon. It could also sidestep family squabbles.

“Listen,” confides one wedding planner, “there are people who will pay anything to just get away from the politics of that, and the hurt feelings . . . When they come home they can have a reception to kind of get around the hurt feelings.”

Evidently, Americans are not the only ones with such ideas. A British firm named New Beginnings, founded five years ago to arrange foreign weddings for English couples, now handles an estimated 400 ceremonies annually around the world. In November, agent Jean Walden opened a branch office in Florida (New Beginnings, P.O. Box 33018, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33733, 813-864-3013).

Not surprisingly, the professional wedding planners warn that most civilians won’t be able to handle all that international red tape themselves. Tambra Riggs, for instance, says that “every single little town in every single little country (in Europe) has a different requirement.” And Marina Taylor points out that in Greece, you can’t get married in a Christian church unless bride and groom can prove they’ve been baptized, and all civil ceremonies must be performed by town mayors.

Still, a do-it-yourselfer can investigate the possibilities without much trouble. One information source is “Frommer’s Honeymoon Destinations” by Risa Weinreb (Prentice Hall, 656 pages; $14.95), though readers should beware of changes in fees, requirements, addresses and phone numbers since the book’s last edition in 1990.

Among the destinations with relatively uncomplicated requirements:

* In Hawaii, a wedding license costs $16, the bride and groom must each be at least 19 years old and have proof of age (younger couples need consent from parents), and the bride must have proof of a rubella test. There is no residency requirement, but if a cleric performs the ceremony, he or she must be licensed in Hawaii. More information is available through the state Department of Health (1250 Punchbowl St., Honolulu, Hawaii 96813, 808-586-4545), which offers free pamphlets, or the Hawaii Visitors Bureau in Los Angeles (3440 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 502, Los Angeles 90010, 213-385-5301).

* In the U.S. Virgin Islands, which include St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, a wedding license costs $25, with an additional $25 fee if a civil ceremony is performed by a Territorial Court judge. Couples must complete an “application for marriage” form, which should be notarized. Applications must be received at least eight days before the prospective bride and groom arrive in the Virgin Islands, and if either party has been divorced, a divorce decree or certified copy should be provided. More information is available through the Virgin Islands Tourist Information Office (3460 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 412, Los Angeles 90010, 213-739-0138).

The red tape for civil ceremonies does thicken in foreign nations, and time is often the crucial element. Many foreign destinations require up to 30 days of residency before an American can be married there. All in all, Riggs rates France and Italy among the most demanding destinations; Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland and Austria are a bit easier. Tourist offices, embassies and consulates may be able to offer further information.

But even when international hurdles have been cleared, planners acknowledge, the most remote and carefully considered ceremony is still vulnerable to the same problems that afflict domestic couplings.

Marina Taylor tells the story of a couple whom she recently sent to Crete with guests. Post-remarriage hostilities were detected early among the happy couple’s parents, Taylor says, and after sending the group across the Atlantic to be together, she then had to covertly instruct the Greek hotel staff to steer the problem parents into well-separated bungalows.

“The bride thought it was an excellent idea because they hated each other,” says Taylor.

And the ceremony?

“It worked out very beautiful. You’d be surprised.”