Wedding Help

[Jon]

Hello everyone..

I have just joined this forum, as I am planning to get married to my fiance in the Philippines towards the end of September this year (2011) and have been searching in various places to try and find the various requirements for this to happen.

I met my fiance in the UK in October 2008 while she was here on a student visa, but that has now ran out and she went back to the Philippines, Quezon City, a few weeks ago.

We have decided that we will get married in the Philippines, so that she can then apply to come back to the UK on a spouse visa.

I have applied for my CNI last week, which should be sent to me on 10th August (after the 21 days posting) and am now planning to fly to the Philippines on 28th August. We will then go to the British Embassy in Manilla on the 31st August (the first available day after arriving due to bank holidays), so that I can get my CNI localised / legalised. Then once we have that we will apply for our marriage license.

My main concern / query is that I can only get 4 weeks holiday, so by the time we get our marriage license we will only have about a week and a half to actually get married. I am worried that after we have received our marriage license, we will not be able to find a venue or judge/solemnizing officer in time before i have to return to the UK.

Can anyone help with advice on whether we can book a venue/judge in advance before we have been issued a marriage license? Or how quickly we should be able to find somewhere once we have been issued our license if it is not possible before.

We are just looking to have a small civil wedding in Quezon City and then we will maybe have a party in the UK when we are here together again.

The other alternative we have been considering is to get married in Boracay. If we were to do this, we would also then invite some close family and friends as well. We would then need to be able to book this in advance as well, so that the guests can make arrangements to go there. Is this something that could be possible?

Thanks in advance for any help, I would appreciate your thoughts!

Thanks again,

Jon

[Steve.r]

Welcome Jon,

First thing is that you need to make an appointment at the British Embassy these days before you can get your CNI changed to a local one. Once you have this, you have to take it to the municiple building in your fiancee's area where it takes 10 days for a local posting and process. During this time you will have to attend a pre-wedding cemonar which can take a half day, but you might be able to swing that one if you have been married before (we did anyway) but it is a formality.
I dont think there is any way of making this process faster unless you can fork out big under the table lumps of cash to the right person. Leaving just a week and a bit for the process is (imo) not achievable. But you are there for 4 weeks, so if you get all done as soon as you arrive, I think no problem.

Good luck and have a great time.

[imagine]

welcome to this friendly forum Jon,

i think you can apply in advance, but other members will be able to advise you, myself i think you will have enough time, if not call in sick for work come back to uk late ,,,,

[Jon]

Welcome Jon,

First thing is that you need to make an appointment at the British Embassy these days before you can get your CNI changed to a local one. Once you have this, you have to take it to the municiple building in your fiancee's area where it takes 10 days for a local posting and process. During this time you will have to attend a pre-wedding cemonar which can take a half day, but you might be able to swing that one if you have been married before (we did anyway) but it is a formality.
I dont think there is any way of making this process faster unless you can fork out big under the table lumps of cash to the right person. Leaving just a week and a bit for the process is (imo) not achievable. But you are there for 4 weeks, so if you get all done as soon as you arrive, I think no problem.

Good luck and have a great time.

Hi Steve r, thanks for your quick response!

We are planning to get my CNI localised (booking an appointment with the embassy beforehand) and then apply for our marriage license as soon as I arrive in the Philippines.

I have estimated that I will only have about a week and a half of my 4 weeks stay left, after we have received our license.

Do you think this will be enough time to find someone and somewhere to get married? Or enough time to get an appointment with the Judge at the City Hall?

Cheers!

[Jon]

welcome to this friendly forum Jon,

i think you can apply in advance, but other members will be able to advise you, myself i think you will have enough time, if not call in sick for work come back to uk late ,,,,

Thanks for the welcome Imagine!

Yeah... I was thinking I could extend my stay in needed, what's another week off work after having 4 weeks off! hehe

Only problem I have with that is it's much cheaper to book a return flight as well, so I don't know if I could move the date of that back too?

Hopefully things will all go swimmingly anyway.. and we'll have time to visit Boracay as well?!