Quote Originally Posted by DaveUK View Post
Hi guys!

Got a bit of a quandry I'm hoping you guys might be able to offer advice on.

I'm looking at going to Cebu mid-December to stay for a month to allow me and my beautiful other half to get married. My concern is that due to the time of year it will be and the hoops that have to be jumped through (ie doing the pre-marriage thing and waiting for the marriage license, etc), do you guys think we'd be able to get married and get a few days trip to HK in within that 4 week period?

I'm just a bit worried that because of public holidays, etc with it being Christmas, it may not leave much time if any issues arose before I'd have to come home. The alternative I guess would be to go at the start of January and do it all in January, but then that would leave me with no holiday's left when the spouse visa would hopefully come through.

What do you guys think? Do you think we'd be ok doing it over the last 2 weeks of December, first two of January, or do you think it would be better/safer doing it all in January?
Lots of good advice here already but thought I'd give benefit of my experience too.
The way to get the process through the quickest is to go into the Phils with a Certificate of No Impediment issued by a Registrar in the UK. You need to post bans in UK (3 weeks) before it's issued and if I remember right it is valid only for 3 months. When you arrive in Phils you need to exchange it for the Phils version at the British Embassy in Manila, no appointment needed. This way you can legally obtain a marriage licence 15 days after entering Phils. Remember, if you leave Phils the clock goes back to zero and you start again. If you don't have the certificate then you need to be in Phils for considerably longer period, not sure what that is though.
By the way, don't forget to get an AIDS test as soon as you can after you arrive there, you'll need it to get your licence.
After you've got your licence then you need to find the judge, find a date and hopefully get it all in before your flight home. Don't know what date you're planning on entering Phils but I suspect that you are going to be pushing your luck a bit to get things sorted over the xmas/new year period, lots of holidays in Phils around that time, xmas and new year mean far more to them than us in UK.
Just as an aside to your marriage, don't forget that when you enter Phils you get a 21 day visa, unless you have previously obtained a 56 day visa in UK (expensive way to do it), so you will need to go to local immigration office to get extension, be prepared to pay extra fee otherwise they send you passport to Manila, you may not get it back in time to come home.
Hope it all goes well for you and you get what you want,