I have just married in the Philippines (8th Feb 07) but I had the all singing and dancing white (or marching) wedding....and not a civil wedding.

You are right about gaining a CNI here in the UK first and this does take 21 days and 40 quid (well this was the cost mine here in County Durham).

When you land in Manila you go to the British Embassy and hand over your CNI (you may have to wait in a line outside the building, what I did was to go the day after I landed at 8.30am and was the 4th one in) You need to have the correct amount of money with you and your passport (yes more money changes hands) I cant remember off hand but I think it was 4500 pesos.....and then you wait 1 hour (like I did) or if they are busy you will get it the same day. (they close at 1.30pm I think)

Once you have the Philippine version of the CNI you then go to the city hall in the place you are to marry (take your passport as they may need to see you are who you say you are) At this point more money changes hands again (you have to get used to this lol) once all the details and documents are done you then have to wait 10 days this does not include Sundays. So add 11 days waiting time depending on when you apply at the city hall.

What I did was to apply for a extension to my stay at the local immigration office (the one I used was close to my hotel in Legazpi City) this cost me 500 pesos for the guy at the office (his under the table costs I think lol) and 1020 pesos with local taxes for the extension...so a total of 1520 pesos for a extra 7 days was not bad...

I had a total of 28 days because I needed to take into account the 10 days waiting time. If your girl knows someone that works in the city hall then you may be able to shorted the 10 days (with some more wheeling and dealing under the table)....I tried but because I am a foreigner they felt they could not offer thia sorter service lol (it was worth a shot lol)

With you having a civil wedding you will not have to deal with the church things like I did as they are very long winded and slow....

I hope you have a quicker time in getting your marriage contract from the NSO than I am. Ours was not sent to the NSO from the church until the 10th March. And to add to this the the local NSO office was damaged in the December 2006 typhoon. But we are applying for a Advance Endorsement and this will take 30 days....so this time April we will have this...but my wife will have to go to Naga City and this she told me is 4 hours on the bus (and I think this is one way I took the Legazpi to Manila once and never again lol 10 hours to travel 200 miles lol)

But the kicker is the visa fees will already have gone up by then but I can do nothing about this....


I hope this helps....