getting married in hong kong

[apss]

hi everyone i would appreciate ur help in this...i ve been with my fiancee for last 8 yrs and we have plans to get married traditionally start of year 2010, at the moment he is in UK but we will be setlting down in hk but before that to save up the time we've planned for court marriiage here in hong kong so thatw e cud comfortably process his visa or id ...i have been with my family in hk for several yrs..we 've got our flat and all of us work here in hk and i am getting permanent in less than a month...my fiancee is goin to be here this october if there was a clear guidance or possibilities for us to get married then i would appreaciate if some one cud provide me with the entire process.......thanks..apss

[carang]

it's VERY VERY VERY easy. you make an appointment. go to the register office and sign the papers. i believe you need a minimum of 2 weeks between making the appointment and the appointment date.

you need two witnesses.

(at least that's how much of it i remember)

[due2008]

I would register asap so you can actually chose the date. I know some places have are booked out for more than a month.

[London2HK]

Is it really that simple as signing some papers? Is there any 'you may kiss the bride' and exchanging of rings traditions? Or is all that saved for the ceremony?

[wtbhotia]

Is it really that simple as signing some papers? Is there any 'you may kiss the bride' and exchanging of rings traditions? Or is all that saved for the ceremony?

you exchange rings, read a statement each that is there already, sign your names on the cert, witness then sign and then your officially married. Kiss the bride and then get kicked out of the room. 15 min ceremony. Its what i call a fast food wedding.

[PDLM]

There's no requirement to exchange rings.

You can get married using a Civil Celebrant at any time and place of your choosing. If you want flexibility of time this is much more convenient than using one of the government marriage registries.

We used Don Vong at Vongs and were happy. If you choose simply to have them handle all the paperwork and to get married at their office then you can negotiate a price substantially below the one mentioned on that page. We paid $3800 all in and didn't negotiate very hard.

[London2HK]

That is good about the rings and I guess that also means there is no need for us to dress the part either?
I want to save all of that stuff for when we have a 'proper' ceremony.

Afterwards, we will be applying for a dependents visa and although we're not worried about proving our relationship, do you think they will suspect something is wrong if we don't have photos of our 'wedding' ?
We have endless amounts of other proof dating back 5 years - matching passport stamps, tenancy agreements back in London, emails and too many photos (don't know which are best to submit and none of them are dated either which is a worry.)

We have already paid and booked a date with a registry office so will just wait for that but thanks for the link.

[PDLM]

I happened to be in a suit because we did it on a Friday evening on the way home from the office, but you can wear whatever you want.

We applied for the Dependant's Visa for my wife on the Saturday morning about 15 hours after we got married. We did take a couple of photos of the 5 of us (couple, witnesses, solicitor) at the solicitor's office and made quick printouts at home to submit with the application.

The more evidence you have of the length of the relationship the better. The documents you suggest are good, and better than we had (we had nothing in joint names for example). If you have photos of you with each other's families I guess that is good (although obviously ImmD has no way actually of knowing who is in the photos) with you. Any photos which are obviously older are good - for example if you used to have very short hair and now it is long.

In my case it was this area that they pushed back on and I had a couple of rounds of submitting further documents. I remember that the last thing I submitted was a printed of a Skype log going back a year or two!

Joint tenancy agreements I reckon gives you a very strong case, but basically submit anything you think strengthens the case. Every time they come back to ask for more adds 2 weeks to the process.

Finanlly, I have never heard of any couple in a genuine relationship being disbelieved by ImmD. The only grounds I have heard of for rejection is insufficient financial means for you to support the Dependant, so don't neglect that area. But if you have accommodation here and an income of, say, $20,000/month or more (in the absence of kids) then that shouldn't be a show-stopper.

Assume at least 6 weeks for the application to be processed. It might come a little sooner, but then again ours took 10 weeks in the end (we didn't have such strong evidence of the length of the relationship).

[London2HK]

From reading that, I will assume we won't have any problems in showing our relationship is genuine then!

I think you are right, the financial aspect is our main worry as I'm earning very little right now, but I know, from practice that it is enough for us to get by on fairly comfortably, because we pretty much have free accommodation so I am hoping that will help our case.

How do you think we can prove our accommodation is free?
Our flat is owned by my Dad who lives in the UK, do you think a written letter will be enough?
Additionally, I could try to get photocopies of his HKID card and flat ownership documents and maybe my birth certificate which I think should state his name (which will match the ID card) and when I submit my bank statements there won't be any regular, large outgoing sums that could be suspected as rent....Do you think that will be enough to prove our free accommodation?!

Thanks for your detailed replies PDLM...

APSS - sorry for hijacking your thread, I didn't even mean to !

[PDLM]

Yes - I think that should be sufficient to prove that you have free accommodation.

However, the lack of income is potentially an issue. The person I know who has repeatedly been refused permission for her husband to join her here is a Permanent Resident earning around HK$9K/month in addition to having free accommodation (she does however have two young children here so obviously that is an extra factor).