Getting married in the US is easy. You go down to the city hall, show them your ID to prove you’re of age, fill out the application for a marriage license, and you’re all set.
It doesn’t work like that in the Philippines.
In the Philippines, the list of requirements is a page long. You have to have documents to prove your identity. You have to have documents to prove your age. You have to have documents to prove your citizenship. You have to have documents to prove that you are not already married. You have to take a class.
And if you want a Catholic Church wedding, there are even more requirements. Do you have your baptismal certificate? How about your confirmation certificate? Good. Almost there. Now you need to go to counseling with a priest. I guess because he knows so much about marriage.
For Eden, we had her birth certificate and her national ID, and we had to go to the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) office to get her Certificate of No Marriage (CENOMAR).
For myself, I had my birth certificate and my passport. Since the federal government in the US doesn’t keep records on marriages, there is no US equivalent to a CENOMAR. Instead, one has to go to either the US Embassy in Manila, or the US Consular Office in Cebu City, and write up a document detailing any previous marriage and divorce, and sign it and have it notarized by the staff there. this is known as the Affidavit of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage. And if you are divorced in the US, then you need to obtain a certified copy of the divorce, and have that apostilled to make it a legal document here in the Philippines.
So, I made an appointment online with he Consular Office, then we had to fly to Cebu so I could appear in person at the Consular Office. And I enlisted the aid of a friend in the Boston area to make a trip to the courthouse to get a certified copy of my divorce documents, then take them to the Secretary of State’s office to be apostilled, and finally to ship those documents to me here in Iloilo City. These were two very expensive pieces of paper!
As for the church… They kept insisting I needed a certificate of baptism from a Catholic church. I was not baptized in a Catholic church, and I do know that the Church recognizes baptism in other churches as valid, so long as it meets three requirements. And I know that my baptism meets those requirements. But good luck arguing with a church here! I did check with the church where I was confirmed and took first communion, but they couldn’t provide any record of it. That being so, we were told we cannot be married in the Church here, BUT, if we first have a civil marriage, THEN the Church will marry us.
So, we gathered all the required documents and applied for a marriage license in Barotac Viejo, took the required class where a woman half my age explained marriage to me in a language I do not understand, waited the requited ten days, then went back to retrieve our license. We then took that over to the courthouse and applied to be married by a judge. Finally, this Monday morning we went to the courthouse and got married.
The plan is still to have a wedding in the church in December, with my daughter Anju with me and, of course, Inday’s family. With Anju, the plan was for her to be here for about a month, so she could be here for the wedding and for Christmas and New Years. But I just heard from Anju yesterday that she may not be able to come. She has two dogs that her boyfriend was going to take care of in her absence, but they just broke up so that isn’t going to happen.
So now I don’t know what is going to happen in December. And those of you who know me, know just how well I deal with uncertainty! The church wedding doesn’t carry much meaning for me. The part I cared about was Anju being with me. If it is important enough to Inday, then we’ll still do it for her and her family.
In any case, we’re married! And now we are free to start working on the next big project; looking for a piece of land where we can build a home and settle down. Stay tuned.
