Bizarre Marriage

Written on : August 20, 2007

So finally, you and your European partner decided to get married–a romantic wedding in an old historic place somewhere in Europe. Well I have not so much say on the topic unless your partner is an Austrian and you are a Filipina and you are planning to get married in Austria. I can warn you–it’s not easy! If you are planning on getting married there or anywhere for that matter, you have to go through several legal hoops. So be wise. Check the Austrian Embassy months before your targeted wedding day. A lot of people would prefer a professional agency to arrange the pre-wedding requirements but here are some guidelines if you want to do it yourself.

Documents that you will need:
1. Birth Certificate
2.Certificate of Singleness/Certificate of No Marriage (CENOMAR)
3.Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage

That’s all.

But of course, the processing is long. You have to get your Birth Certificate from NSO ONLY! No birth certificates from the Local Civil Registrar please! It must be from the NSO. Nowhere else. And it shouldn’t be more than 6 months old. It’s the same with the CENOMAR. They must be all from NSO. After NSO, your documents must go through the DFA office in Manila. Nowhere else. Your document might take some time in this office so be very sure that you have this luxury. I am recommending this to you, and all the others who needed to get their documents authenticated by DFA, please process your documents early and be patient. It could take days so be sure that you have plenty of time to wait. Those who are rushing are more likely to be asked to pay under the table money. Please don’t put yourself in this situation. Stop the red tape! It’s a shameful thing. After getting your documents authenticated by the DFA office, it’s then time to bring these to the Austrian Embassy for further checking. And this is would take several weeks. So again, be sure that your wedding date is not tomorrow otherwise you will be in a very deep ****.

Also take note of the following: The Austrian Embassy in Manila only releases and accepts documents on Fridays. From 1:00pm to 3:00pm only. No other days and no other time. Don’t ask me why, it’s the way it is! After you have your documents from the Austrian Embassy, it’s then time to bring it to a Translator because your documents need to be translated from English to German. We did this final step in Austria because we don’t know anybody in the Philippines who is legally capable to translate such documents.

So that’s all what you’ll need. The required documents for your Austrian partner, is of course another story which I will be covering in my next topic. I hope that this help you somehow. Ciao!