Anyone married to a foreign national?

[Tosno]

I am married to a Russian. Marrying an EU citizen is easy mode, no £1000 settlement visa with its £18,600 fiancial requirement, then you must buy another one 30 months later.

 

[SkodaMart]

then you must buy another one 30 months later.

You 'wore her out' in 30 months??

 

[Jimbeam3678]

With a Kiwi bird when I came to NZ. Makes you appreciate their immigration system when thinking back about the nightmares applying for a work visa for her for the UK. Our mob couldn't have been any more less helpful or rude if you paid them to. The hilarious thing was, her case officer could barely speak a word of English, yet tried to be rude. Told him on the phone that we need a translator and preferably one with a modicum of manners. He started piping up and I told him to shut up and learn to speak English and get some manners or bugger back on the banana ship he came in on. Let's just say it nearly reflected in the visa decision.

When I applied, it was awesome. Lovely Kiwi bloke, after my documentation was checked, I got a decision within 2 days giving me a year work visa. I could've applied for residency straight away but it takes like 9 months or something. I applied for it anyway right after my work visa and got a decision within 4 months. I can now live here forever. My residency case officer was awesome and we kept wise cracking on football results. He even mailed me 'LOL' after Arsenal lost against Tottenham. Imagine the sour pusses with chips on their shoulders at the UK Home Office doing that.

To be fair UK case officers have slightly less time on their hands then NZ ones do

But in general I agree UKBA are just about competent at best , hence the reason we employed a immigration expert for my wife application

 

[Kutter]

yes wife is a yank, we got the spouse visa, then we did all the usual marriage stuff from the registry office, we had to do it at Blackburn instead of burnley though, then we got married and she went back to the USA, for her residency visa. it took a week and then she came back. Now we live in the USA but we did live in the UK for a while after.

 

[D.P.]

Yes, and to make it more fun we got married in a 3rd country. Really, where you get married makes very little difference, as long as you get a valid marriage certificate then any country will deem it necessary evidence. For certain visas you may need to provide supplimentary data such as proof of shared bank accounts, photos of you together on holiday, email discussions going back X years etc.

You can't registers your marriage in another country AFAIK, so if you are going to get married in the UK there is nothing you need to tell Portugal under normal circumstances.

 

[Cosimo]

My wife is Welsh if that counts?

Only if you post a pic.

 

[Sliver]

Only if you post a pic.

Here ya go . . .

 

[NickK]

Yes, and to make it more fun we got married in a 3rd country. Really, where you get married makes very little difference, as long as you get a valid marriage certificate then any country will deem it necessary evidence. For certain visas you may need to provide supplimentary data such as proof of shared bank accounts, photos of you together on holiday, email discussions going back X years etc.

You can't registers your marriage in another country AFAIK, so if you are going to get married in the UK there is nothing you need to tell Portugal under normal circumstances.

We needed a some certified/professional translated documentation from english into french (the french would only accept documentation in french) - the translator needed to be officially certified by the french consulate.

Also we needed to provide the french marriage certificate for the english documentation.

 

[covenantuk]

Ok, we married last year. My wife is Spanish but there's some general principles that apply:


- You are both EU citizens. Wherever you marry it will be valid and residency isn't an issue.

- We married in Spain so I don't know about there, but there is no longer any need (or even any way) to register your marriage in the UK if you marry within the EU. Just present your marriage document if it is needed at any time.

- Getting all the documentation to marry in Spain was really tough.
..........Anything in English such as birth certificates will need to be translated and notarised/certified.
..........In addition we needed at least 3 trips to the consulate (luckily there's one in Edinburgh).
..........The final paperwork had to be signed by the ambassador himself
..........We also needed to make a trip to the location of our wedding to arrange things with the local town hall there.

I think it took us 3 months and a £200-300 to get the paperwork done.

The biggest pain is that we had to get all the documentation done within a time limit - in Scotland the initial search is only valid for 3 months, so you have to complete everything and get it to the Spanish side in that period plus the Town Hall wouldn't let you book a wedding until you have the paperwork done. We couldn't book until 3 weeks before everyone was due to fly there - scary!

 

[NickK]

Oh.. not that I want to blow your marriage plans out of the water..

It cost us about 5K euros for a lakeside location, afternoon-drinks+food, then evening rooms, 7 course meal and wine for 70+ people. French weddings are a multi-day affair, so you get married have drinks and finger food then you have some leave and more arrive for the evening do.. that starts around 6-7.. the food starts with ~40 minutes between each course for games and chat... ending finally the wedding cake is served at midnight.. ending at 3am.
The french have a tradition that the kids get put on their own table.. you get a couple of child entertainers to keep them busy through the entire day... then they do a show/presentation showing how they met.. for the bride and groom (including things like plate spinning etc they learnt during the day).. then when they get tired they sleep in a big pile of sleeping bags at the side of the room. They're all used to it so they just zone out.. leaving the parents to have fun.

Next day - hire a old chateaux for a long lunch buffet with more booze and lots of rustic pate (that what I remembered ) to fuel up all the people that came to the wedding for their trip home. Sometime in the late afternoon.. you're finished.

We made our wedding about a celebration focusing on family, kids and food I think it went down in legend

Now to my point - it may be worth doing the wedding in Portugal rather than the UK from financial grounds, uniqueness - people will travel for the experience and be able to chat about it to their friends..