Registering Your Marriage License

Congratulation on your wedding!

Your big day is now over and its time to file your Marriage License!

It is true that when you get your Marriage License that you can marry anywhere in the Philippines. But what most people do not know that when you have your wedding ceremony elsewhere that you need to have your Marriage License register at the nearest Registrar office from where it was held.

On my case, I had a destination wedding. While it is true that if you hired a Reverent to solemnize your wedding that he will be the one who should be filing at the Registrar office, I took the responsibility off him as the location is far from our city of origin. With this, my husband and I travel long hours to go to the Municipality Office nearest to our wedding location.

Along with the signed Marriage License and other supporting documents, we passed all these to the officer-in-charge who took her time in checking all the documents (spellings and so on). She will have the copies printed and signed. In total, we paid 175php for the process of documents and another 100php for the mailing of document to the nearest Regional NSO for the "electronic endorsement". You will be given a courier receipt with their transmittal which will serve as attachment along with your original Marriage License copy. This is for the purpose in following up NSO whether your copy is ready for SECPA printing.

Since I personally filed it, I was given another copy for the Reverent which will serve as his file copy.

I was told that the waiting period is 2 months. This is contradictory to what most say that 1 month waiting time is possible. But just the same, I think I wanted to try my luck on the 1 month. I will just post an update regarding the waiting time.

Good luck with yours!

Destination Wedding

After the posting period is done, you can claim your Marriage License Application Form and all its attachment from the City Civil Registrar on where you filed your application. This is the time where you can submit it to the person who will solemnize your wedding.

On our case, my fiancee is Christian while I am Roman Catholic in religion. We planned for a beach wedding and have a Christian reverent to bless our wedding. We gave him all the papers from the Registrar Office along with an invitation card (for the spelling of your Godparents or the Ninong-Ninang as we locally call them) and a letter requesting to have the wedding on our choice of venue.

They will copy the contents of your Marriage License Application Form and will print them on a Marriage License which you will use on your wedding day. Your Godparents will be listed as your 'Witness'. In the Philippine Law, you just needed 2 witness that is of legal age. However, there is no citation on the maximum number of witnesses. Irregardless of number of pairs, they will  all symbolize as your second parents and maybe the people whom you will go to when seeking wisdom. Anyway, it is important that you proofread the said document as this is the one which you will submit to the Registrar Office.

You're done! Have a happy wedding!

Cheers!

Marriage License Application Requirements

I would recommend that you go to your Cityhall to get the requirements in applying for the Marriage License. It is case-to-case basis and may have slight differences on which paper is needed to be submitted. On my case: both me and my German fiance are single, above 26 years old, and the wedding will be solemnize by a Christian Pastor. The following are the requirement ask from us:

--PH Partner--
1. NSO Birth Certificate
2. NSO CENOMAR
3. Barangay Certificate
4. Cedula
--German Partner--
1. Passport
-- Photocopy of the first page (containing his information) and the arrival date page (most recent)
2. Consular Certificate of the Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage
-- His Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage will serve as an attachment
3. Birth Certificate
-- with a translation of it
4. NSO CENOMAR
--Others--
1. Pre-Marriage Counseling Seminar's Certificate of Attendance
2. Pre-Marriage Counseling Certificate from the solemnizing church


Bring all your documents both original and photocopies with you to the Registrar Office. So sorry and I was not able to list down the number of photocopies needed. Some documents needed 2 photocopies while some only 1. Have the person-in-charge double check your documents. They will type all your information to a Marriage License Application form and will ask you to proofread it. This is the time to correct them incase there is something misspelled. If its complete: They will stamp this and will ask the City Government Department Head of the City Civil Registrar office to interview you and sign it. Then you are done!

They will put up a notice about you marrying and this will be posted for 10 - 12 days including  Saturdays and Sundays. You just need to go back to get the Marriage License which will be used for your wedding ceremony.

The fee that we paid to have everything processed is 2,400php.

Hope it helps! Good luck and Congratulation!

Pre-Marriage Counseling

One of the requirement for the application of the Marriage License is to obtain a Certificate of Attendance from a Pre-Marriage Seminar. This will be conducted by authorized counselor/s accredited by the Commission on Population and City Government of where your PH counterpart lives in.

Like others, I did try to wiggle out of this. I rationalize that the seminar will not be in English dialect ( in other words: my foreign partner will not understand much of the seminar anyway). I was more than willing to pay than spend my time at the seminar. I did got some offer and it was outrageous! It was only later that I realize that the seminar was not so bad after all, and was relief to know I save tons of money on it. You see, I only paid 100php which is good for you and your partner already.

The said seminar only took half a day and the topics discussed range from responsible parenthood to psychological readiness in facing problems as a couple. If you ask me, save your money and go attend that seminar with your partner. Anyway, you can cuddle all you want in there and no one will mind you. *wink*