So having prepared your folder and documents what can you do next ?

2. Go to the local registry office in your home town, all registry offices are offices for births, marriages and death, they also perform civil weddings, the details can be found in yellow pages or at your local council, they tend to be in major towns and close to City hall.

You require to obtain the following documents:

(a) A Certificate of "No impediment to marriage" and a 2nd raised seal copy.

The application fee for this is £25.00, plus you will need to apply for your prospective marriage to be listed on the walls inside the registry office, this is for the marriage to Foreigners act and last for 3 weeks, the purpose of this is to ensure that their is no impediment to the marriage taking place, and gives anyone the opportunity of raising such concerns, i.e. if you are a serial bigamist.

Once you have the required papers, you may arrange your flight and get on with your trip to the Philippines, if you are divorced you will have needed to submit your divorce decree absolute to the registry office.

ARRIVAL IN THE PHILIPPINES.

On arrival in the Philippines you would be advised to get straight down to the embassy to obtain a "Legal Capacity for Marriage" this is the Philippine equivalent to our "No impediment to marriage"

This is a required document for the Philippine Authorities to issue a marriage license, at time of writing this I am not sure what the fee is for this certificate but it cant be more than 2500 pesos.

Once having gained the "Legal Capacity for Marriage" you may head to your prospective wife's home town and arrange your marriage, you will need to go to the rural health unit, and obtain pre-marriage counselling, this is part of the Philippines bureacratic black hole system, its commonly found to be a joke, but you are best to get on with it, and get it doen, you can try and pay someone to get you a paper saying you have had it, but in truth, its quicker to book it and do it, once having obtained that, and being signed off for this, you can then go to the city hall or district court and apply for a marriage license, taking all relevant documents, unfortunately to issue this takes 10 days.

You can try and pay someone to rush it through, thats the best idea I can give, if you can do this, and it is rushed through, then you can arrange your wedding, however if you have to hang around for 10 days, its a long time and you can at this stage be getting on with your wedding arrangements.

Once you have married and have the marriage Certificate, then its time to go back to the section on Applying for a visa for your loved one to be settled with you.


Best of luck,, i enjoyed writing all of this information, I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Pete
Forum Mod