How to have two weddings?

[briank]

My fiancée and me have an interesting dilemma, which I can’t find, already answered on this site. We would like to have two weddings!


Let me explain. I am a UK born citizen, engaged to a Filipino born girl. In an ideal world we would like two weddings, one in UK and one in the Philippines so that both families get to attend a wedding, but of course you can’t legally get married twice. (Can you?)

We will shortly be applying for our fiancée visa for entry to the UK and if granted that will give my fiancée six months in the UK during which we are supposed to get married.

Are current plan is to actually go ahead with the wedding in the UK, just a simple registry office wedding, for my family, and so that we are legally married in the UK, so that hopefully this will smooth out future visa applications. But after this we would like to return to the Philippines and have a large, all singing all dancing second “wedding” there for her family.

Now I far as I know you cannot legally have a second real wedding, as you are already married, but certainly in the UK you can have a second ceremony where you reconfirm your vows. Basically, a second wedding but without any legal status.


My question is, can we have a similar reconfirmation of vows ceremony in the Philippines, and if so can it only be in a church, only a civil ceremony or either.

Has anyone here done anything similar, or even done it the other way around i.e. got legally married in the Philippines first and then had a second “wedding” in the UK?

Do it have any implications regarding getting visas etc which was round you do it?


If anyone has done this, or has any advice to give we would be most grateful.

Thanks
Brian

[Jay&Zobel]

Dear Brian

we are attempting to do the same..
we will be wed in the Hannington Church in the UK in January.
so before that big day to happen, we had to talk to the parochial vicar and was advised to get a Bishop's License (in Wells) for us to be able to be legally wed here in the UK coz basically we will not be married by banns but by license... so we went to Wells, brought our passports, and identifications etc.. so yeah, Jay had to state that all the information/docs given were true and correct and genuine. we paid £60 for that affidavit license. so now we are all set for the wedding...

and probably next year, we plan to have another Church wedding in the Philippines so my folks could attend too.. so all we need is UK marriage license and have the renewal of vows in the PI.

I’ve once talked to our parish priest (back home) he said that any marriages (wedding ceremonies/civil weddings) held abroad will always be valid in the Philippines. (just don’t forget to bring the marriage certificate when renewing the vows).

Hope this will help.

Cheers,

Zobel

[vbkelly]

i think any couples here planned to get marraiges twice one for the girl side n one for a man side.what happen mine was bcoz me n my husband were married in church in the philippines and plan to get a church wedding again here in uk for my husband family but the parish priest said no to us bcoz it is the same, he said anywhere in the world if you married in catholic church just once,and what we did just had a wedding party to his family.if you have a civil wedding first the priests allow you to get a church wedding

[andypaul]

You mention you want a marriage in uk and a second one in phil.
Although slighty different we had a registery cermoney in the local town hall in phill and at our reception afterwards we had a blessing by the familys vicar.

the blessing kept all the oldies happy and was as close as to being a full on wedding (as we know them from tv and flims as possible) without the legal bit.

With regard the visa side of things im sure plenty of couples have married in phill/uk, in either a cvill or church wedding with some sort of blessing in the other.

in fact wanting to show how in love you are and happy to be a couple twice over can only be a postive imo.