Suggestion Best Posts in Thread: Marrying your Filipina outside the RP

Check out marriage in New Zealand. I (US citizen) married my Filipina wife there last summer. We did the application ahead of time, then picked up the license on day 2 after arrival, then got married on day 3 and registered it day 4. The office in Auckland is really nice. It's pretty easy: only needed our passports and my divorce certificate from my prior marriage. You can even choose to get married there at the office, but we enjoyed our beach wedding.

 

I was hoping it might be the country in which the vessel was flagged. Possibly your friend fell afoul of the cruise lines regulations and not the nations? I don't doubt your friend had to get married in port, I'm just not absolutely certain of the reason that was so. I will do some research. I always thought the captains power to marry people was due to his status of master after God of a ship on the high seas. If anything I would think his civil powers would be stripped in port.

Found something.

However, the option of a legal shipboard marriage has become tantalizingly real outside the territorial waters of the United States. Princess Cruises, whose Pacific Princess ship was the one piloted by Mr. MacLeod in the show, turned fantasy into reality in 1998, arranging for its captains to perform legal marriages on the high seas, with Bermuda, where its ships are registered, providing the marriage licenses. Celebrity, which is flagged in Malta, joined the party in 2008, offering legal weddings on some sailings. More recently the Bermuda-flagged Cunard followed suit, as did Royal Caribbean, whose ships are registered in the Bahamas, and which began offering legal marriages with captains as officiants on some sailings.

 

I just got married in Bangkok, Thailand at the end of September. There were surprises that we weren't prepared for. The first surprise was that all documentation on her part needed to be DFA certified. That necessitated her going back to Manila to take care of that issue. Then we found out that the Philippine embassy would not issue her the certified letter for her ability to marry until after a 10 day wait. That was painful! Due to these 2 issues, it took 3 trips to Thailand to get everything settled. After that, we found out that getting an NSO certified marriage license in the Philippines will probably take several months. If I had to do it over again, I'd just get married in the Philippines!

1. Affirmation of Freedom to Marry in Thailand from embassies. There are forms available on the USA and Philippine embassy websites to perform this. Fill them out ahead of time. Go to the Philippine embassy website and find out their hours of operation and which holidays that they’re closed. USA embassy is by appointment only and they have a separate building across the street from the actual embassy to process minor paperwork like this. Make an appointment and follow the guidelines on the embassy website.

2. Bring multiple photocopies of your passports.

3. Have the Affirmation translated to Thai. Several agencies that do this around Sukhumvit wanted 3 days to perform the translation. We ended up using a guy nearby the Philippine embassy that soaked us on the fee, but got it done quickly.

4. Go to the Department of Consular Affairs for authentication. If you pay an extra fee and get there before 11:30 am, you can get the authentication the next day.

5. Register the marriage at the Amphur. To do this, you’ll need 2 copies of passports, Letter of Affirmation of Freedom to Marry (more copies), 2 witnesses. We did it on Sukhumvit and hired the witnesses.

6. Have the marriage certificate translated to English. Recommend getting 2-3 certified copies of this.

7. Register the marriage at the Philippine Embassy.

Note: we went through so much trouble to get this stuff done (due mainly to the Philippine Embassy ridiculous requirements) that we ended up hiring an agent to take over the steps for us. Cost me about 9,000p overall, but it was worth having the guy pick up documents without us being involved. If needed, I can provide the guys phone number and email via PM.

Note 2: the USA embassy was very professional and easy to get things done. Took me about 45 minutes each time I had to go there to complete my task. The Philippine embassy was a pain in the butt. Allow more time for those folks than you'd imagine. Take a cold drink with you.

 

I know a couple who got married in HK within the last year. It was quick enough once the preliminary preparations were done except for the part where he needed two witnesses and no one around HK city hall spoke English...

Another guy, Canadian, told me he got married in Fiji maybe 10yrs ago to protect his interests back home

 

I know it may be late to the party, but I got divorced in Guam and had the Consul General in Guam recognize the Divorce and it was very simple and only cost $30 USD (I had my lawyer in Guam do it for me). have you tried to get the same done in USA from Philippine consul or embassy? I then registered the divorce with the NRO easy peasy!

 

The pain of time and cost of the paperwork seems wasteful and very irritating to me. Even if ending up at the same cost and time, I would rather avoid the high cost of document verification et al and fly to Hong Kong or even back to the States. Kind of a two fur, or a free vacation, something more than a bunch of receipts.

Don't know if I am cheap, a tight a$$, frugal, hate stupid paperwork, or too broke to dump a bunch of money on a piece of paper And take a vacation/honeymoon??? hmmmm, now that I wrote it, seems like the last one. haha

 

I started just processing the recognition of foreign divorce as to many issues getting married abroad over the last 5-10 years so many countries have made it difficult to come for a week or two on vacation and get married even when its just 2 foreigners. I've been suggested currently it may take about 3 months but it all depends on how long it takes to get a court date with a judge.

However one must understand the before process. For me I was divorced in Nevada per Nevada law. I was required to get the state to authenticate the divorce then the US consulate in the US then the Philippine Embassy in the US to certify it. Its an apostille certification that is needed. It cost be about $1,000 US to do that which was done through a service but the cheapest I could find as things have to be done in person and its quite complicated. Add on the Philippines *recognition* after you have the apostille done requires a court hearing with a judge and I was quoted multiple times at 50-60k to have it done but I found a lawyer (family friend) who is doing it much cheaper as I have everything in order.

Now of course the same nonsense Philippine government nonsense may come into play. Their ONLY job is to acknowledge that my divorce is completely legal at the place it was received from and aren't allowed to question reasons and so forth. Yet they are going to require from what I have been told a posting in a local paper for my ex (but if you say she is elsewhere they will do the posting there, so better to say you don't know and the last you heard from her years ago she was around here. If you say she is overseas they will require the posting their upping the cost greatly). The judge shouldn't be able to play games based on if they like or dislike divorces but here you just never know.

 

That's life. I like to remember that what you don't know may not hurt you, but the things that you do "know" that aren't true can bite you in the a55. Nobody has time to google everything. We just do the best we can and stay on top of the financials. With your personal experience I would have said the same. I just had no personal experience.

 

The OP poses a good question here. The Philippines has to recognize any legal marriage from another country. Now to find an accessable foreign country where the bar is set low to get married. Mexico or Las Vegas in the US would be easy but too hard to get to. Maybe you could get the captain of a ship to marry you? There are cruise ships. Hit international waters and just do it! Would that work? Might be worth a try if nothing better shows up.