When to get married!

[DaveUK]

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?

[aromulus]

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?

I would try to post the bans before Christmas, as some of the days in between are classed as working days, and book a date for the wedding in January accordingly.
It would pay to find out on what day they actually close for the holiday period, before hand, tho.
And plan it from there.
This should be easy if your Fiancee lives in Cebu.

Good luck.

[DaveUK]

Cheers fella.

Doing rough numbers in my head, I reckon we'll be ok, but just wanted to run it past you guys in case there was something I wouldn't of thought of! :-)

Will start working on getting exact public holidays now and timings, etc.

Thanks again for the reply.

[ginapeterb]

Hello Dave,

So you want to marry in December, well why not ? if you prepare yourself, well in advance before you go, you should not have to experience any problem marrying at Christmas, your marriage license should take about 10 days, but there is nothing to stop your girl approaching the incumbent Judge, if its a hotel wedding, and seeking his or her advice about it.

Normally, the Judge would marry you and then date the wedding from such time as the license is valid, providing of course he or she is aware the license is coming from the District registry.

These are things you really need to plan before you go, your girl can be a great help in this, and its wise to allow her to make most of the arrangements, suggest you concentrate on paying the bills mate.

You should really only need about 2 weeks to go out there, and I am pleased for you, because a Filipino wedding in my view is an experience not to be missed.

You can have great fun also planning your wedding, sometimes, its nice to be there in advance, and then you can go around planning the various aspects of your wedding, such as your clothes, maybe you will wear traditional dress such as the Barong Tagalog, and you can help your bride choose her dress.

Decorations at the wedding are everything, and of course ensuring a good spread of food for the guests, Filipino's like a big spread, so think about that when planning all of this, you can start now, never can be too early when it comes to the Filipino wedding arrangements.

Best of luck with it, tell us how it al goes, we are looking forward to hearing about your plans.

[DaveUK]

Cheers ginapeterb.

We've already started the discussions about where to get married, have the reception, what to wear, etc. I've been working on getting her to check everything out between now and when I visit in June so we can then go round and check these places out together.

Just trundling around checking places out is enough of an effort for me. Can imagine it being a bit like going shopping with the missus, except I have to be interested instead of just feigning interest! :-)

Appreciate your advice with regard to the marriage license as well. Something I'll definitely look into.

Cheers

[scottishbride]

Good on you mate! What type of wedding are you going for? Is it a civil wedding or church wedding? Mel and I are going for a church wedding, the hardest part for us so far is getting all the necessary documents for the church, they tend to make it a bit harder for us since I am Protestant and a foreigner! We attended a few bridal fares 8 months ago, the suppliers said June, July, December and January are peak months so better snap them up quick. Good luck!

[DaveUK]

Good on you mate! What type of wedding are you going for? Is it a civil wedding or church wedding? Mel and I are going for a church wedding, the hardest part for us so far is getting all the necessary documents for the church, they tend to make it a bit harder for us since I am Protestant and a foreigner! We attended a few bridal fares 8 months ago, the suppliers said June, July, December and January are peak months so better snap them up quick. Good luck!

Looking at a civil wedding. Not exactly a religious person myself, so feel a bit naughty doing it in church! The wedding that is of course! :-)

[IainBusby]

Just make sure you cater food and drinkwise for at least twice as many people than you have invited. Once the word gets around on the grapevine there will probably be lots of relatives, no matter how distant, and long lost friends who will assume they must have been invited but the invitation just got lost in the post or something.


Iain.

[DaveUK]

Just make sure you cater food and drinkwise for at least twice as many people than you have invited. Once the word gets around on the grapevine there will probably be lots of relatives, no matter how distant, and long lost friends who will assume they must have been invited but the invitation just got lost in the post or something.


Iain.

Didn't think I'd need to worry about sending out invites. Was assuming word of mouth! :-)

[ginapeterb]

Dave ohhhhhhh no, you must do things properly my friend, invitations are very important, this is not an ordinary wedding, this is a Filipino wedding, Filipino weddings are a great occasion, you must plan plan plan.

You must get down to the printers with your girl and sort out what theme you will have for your civil wedding, what will be your theme colors Gina and I had orange and cream as our theme, then you must decide, what your

Give away

will be, lots of people tend to go for a little married couple on a house, or a wedding cake with couple give away, these are little tokens of your marriage that the guests will want to keep, at the end of the ceremony and socializing, your guests will want to come out and get theres.

If you do want to see a wedding in the Philippines, and the procedure, take a look at mine, I have nothing to hide, here it is at.

http://www.british-filipino.com/filipinowedding.html

Its a rough guide to give you some idea of what to expect, as Ian Busby has said, the only thing that is not a changing constant, is the number of guests that you will inherit at your wedding, unless of course as a British friend of mine lamented on last year when we were in BOB'S CAFE "I do hope that girl is an orphan" then you will not have as many guests.

[DaveUK]

Dave ohhhhhhh no, you must do things properly my friend, invitations are very important, this is not an ordinary wedding, this is a Filipino wedding, Filipino weddings are a great occasion, you must plan plan plan.

You must get down to the printers with your girl and sort out what theme you will have for your civil wedding, what will be your theme colors Gina and I had orange and cream as our theme, then you must decide, what your

Give away

will be, lots of people tend to go for a little married couple on a house, or a wedding cake with couple give away, these are little tokens of your marriage that the guests will want to keep, at the end of the ceremony and socializing, your guests will want to come out and get theres.

If you do want to see a wedding in the Philippines, and the procedure, take a look at mine, I have nothing to hide, here it is at.

http://www.british-filipino.com/filipinowedding.html

Its a rough guide to give you some idea of what to expect, as Ian Busby has said, the only thing that is not a changing constant, is the number of guests that you will inherit at your wedding, unless of course as a British friend of mine lamented on last year when we were in BOB'S CAFE "I do hope that girl is an orphan" then you will not have as many guests.

As a guy, I guy I definitely didn't appreciate how much planning needs to go into a wedding. I knew it was a lot, but guess I've not thought about the little things!

Thanks for the heads up! :-)

[Mrs.JMajor]

yahooo,from knowing what you been through on the past and now you are talking about wedding,'im so happy for you both Simon and Miriam,wish you all the best in life

[DaveUK]

yahooo,from knowing what you been through on the past and now you are talking about wedding,'im so happy for you both Simon and Miriam,wish you all the best in life

Cheers :-) Never thought this time last year that I would be so happy. But then, if I had just listened to what you guys were telling me and completely ignored how I was feeling, things would have been so much easier at the time! :-)

[neilf]

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,

[IainBusby]

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,

I beleive you can also exchange your UK CNI for the Phils version at the British Consulate in Cebu, which for you Simon would probably be much easier.

In my experience, limited as it is, you can usually get the marriage licence 10 days after you apply, but some provinces only count working days, Monday to Friday as part of the 10 day waiting period. It would probably be best to get Miriam to look into it at the place where you intend to apply for the marriage licence so you can plan well ahead. If you went to the British Consulate and then went and applied for your marriage licence on the same day, you might be able to get married on or after the 11th day of your stay.

If you have to attend a pre-marital seminar, you can usually do this during the period that your waiting for your marriage licence. You should also get Miriam to check whether there are any other local requirements...... When Louella and I applied for our marriage licence, we found out, completely to her surprise I might add, that we had to do a tree planting in her local barangay.

This is the first time I ever heard about an AIDS test being a requirement to get a marriage licence. Does anyone know if this a national policy?

Iain.

[DaveUK]

Thanks for the tips Iain. I'll get Miriam to do all the running around while I just sit here feeling useless as usual! :-)

[PeterB]

I wasn't required to take an aids test in order to marry but, in the old visa regime, I did need the HIV test in order to gain residential status here.

[USA]

Actually, I know a couple that just got married in Hong Kong because the requirements were so much easier.

[acs]

wow wedding soon to come..BouncyHappy:: congratulations in advance Simon and Miriam ...

[DaveUK]

wow wedding soon to come..BouncyHappy:: congratulations in advance Simon and Miriam ...

Cheers acs :-)

[aromulus]

Hi guys!
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.

I understand that you were thinking of going there, in december, and also understand thet you are looking to get married in june this year.....

What you haven't said is wether you actually have been and visited her....

And what put all your original fears to rest....

Don't get me wrong, I am very pleased for you but it seems I must have missed a few posts..

Don't forget to fetch loads of chocolate when you go.... Instantly you will be called "Tito" Dave.....

[IainBusby]

I understand that you were thinking of going there, in december, and also understand thet you are looking to get married in june this year.....

What you haven't said is wether you actually have been and visited her....

And what put all your original fears to rest....

Don't get me wrong, I am very pleased for you but it seems I must have missed a few posts..

Don't forget to fetch loads of chocolate when you go.... Instantly you will be called "Tito" Dave.....

A different girl put all of his original frears to rest, come on Dom, keep up.
Iain.

[aromulus]

A different girl put all of his original frears to rest, come on Dom, keep up.
Iain.

Come on Iain, sometime I am here and there chasing my own , never mind keeping up....

If she buys another pair of shoes, handbag or t-shirt I will hang myself.....

[IainBusby]

Come on Iain, sometime I am here and there chasing my own , never mind keeping up....

If she buys another pair of shoes, handbag or t-shirt I will hang myself.....

What is it with Filipinas that makes them want to buy so many. Especially shoes and handbags, but not only them, clothes of any description. All of the wardrobes in out house are bursting at the seams, I had to put up some rails in the loft; only for clothes that belong to me but don't get worn very often; we have 4 double clothes hooks in the hallway by the front door, the cupboard under the stairs has 4 double hooks on both inside and out and each bedroom door has 4 double clothes hooks on the inside only..... so far. And there isn't one hook left that doesn't have at least four items of clothing on it.

Of course when it's time to go to the Philippines, many of these clothes, which have been up to now, so indispensable, will go to ensure that I get a hernia and we far exceed our baggage allowance.

[aromulus]

Of course when it's time to go to the Philippines, many of these clothes, which have been up to now, so indispensable, will go to ensure that I get a hernia and we far exceed our baggage allowance.

You couldn't believe what Jet managed to shove into two balikbayan boxes......
It took about 3 lbs of extra strong, all singing all dancing tape to secure the boxes.....

[DaveUK]

I understand that you were thinking of going there, in december, and also understand thet you are looking to get married in june this year.....

What you haven't said is wether you actually have been and visited her....

And what put all your original fears to rest....

Don't get me wrong, I am very pleased for you but it seems I must have missed a few posts..

Don't forget to fetch loads of chocolate when you go.... Instantly you will be called "Tito" Dave.....

You have missed a few posts fella! :-)

I visited Miriam for the first time at the end of April last year for 2 weeks. Went back for nearly 3 weeks over Christmas/New Year just gone. Going back for 2 weeks in June this year, then the plan is to get married at the end of this year :-)

Fears-wise. That girl is long long gone thanks to help and advise from you guys, Iain in particular, for which I'm very grateful! :-)

[IainBusby]

You have missed a few posts fella! :-)

I visited Miriam for the first time at the end of April last year for 2 weeks. Went back for nearly 3 weeks over Christmas/New Year just gone. Going back for 2 weeks in June this year, then the plan is to get married at the end of this year :-)

Fears-wise. That girl is long long gone thanks to help and advise from you guys, Iain in particular, for which I'm very grateful! :-)

:9: If I can help somebody, as I pass along, :9:
:9: If I can cheer somebody, with a word or song, :9:
:9: If I can show somebody, how they're travelling wrong, :9:
:9: Then my living shall not be in vain. :9:


If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody wird or song, If I can show somebody he is travelling wrong, then my living shall not be in vain.f I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he is travelling wrong, then my living shall not be in vain.