Getting married in China

[Monika]

Hello! I'm Polish, but I am settled in the UK. Next year I am planning to get married with my Chinese boyfriend. Currently he is still living in China. We have a plan to get married there and after that he will migrate to the UK to live with me. From what I've understood the documents I will need to produce to get married there would be my passport and non-marriage certificate. Do I need anything else? Does anyone have any advice on the whole process or any similar experiences? Thank you xx

[ChTTay]

From my own experience, there are the two things you need. Your passport and the certificate/letter that says you’re free to marry. In my case this was provided by the U.K. embassy here. 

For foreigners marrying Chinese people you need to go to the home province’s capital city. The smaller cities can not handle Chinese-Foreign marriages. For example, if you’re boyfriend was from Qingdao In Shandong you'd have to go to Jinan. 
 

There was no one else at the office when we went. We didn’t see anyone else getting married the whole time.  One person at the office spoke enough English and insisted on doing so even though we were all speaking Chinese. They had examples of forms with English translations on then to see what each box was asking for. My form was Chinese but my answers were in English. The whole process took about 15 minutes. The longest part was waiting for the marriage books once everything is done. 

 

You also need to have your passport and letter translated. My letter was bilingual mostly but it still needed to be translated at a verified/official translation office. I guess it might be obvious but we called the wedding office to check what we needed and also had a local friend go there to ask. It wasn’t mentioned. It’s more than likely the wedding office you go to has a translator that they use. Just use them because they know exactly what the office wants. It’s worth knowing in case you plan to go to the wedding office for opening and have a train that day... only to be told you need things translated. That initial translation took about 30-40 minutes. 
 

After you have been married, you should probably take all the stuff back to the translators  office and have them translate it all into English, stamp it, etc. We were told you this translation must be done in the city/province you’re married in. However, they could have just been getting us to pay them to do it! ? It wasn’t that expensive anyway. This involves translating more stuff so was about a 1-2 hour wait. 

20 minutes ago, Monika said:

after that he will migrate to the UK to live with me.

Do you mind if I ask how you will do this? 

[roddy]

6 hours ago, ChTTay said:

Do you mind if I ask how you will do this?

If I remember correctly, this is a quirk of how the laws work. If you're a UK citizen wanting to bring in a non-UK spouse, UK laws apply. If you're an EU citizen wanting to bring in a non-UK spouse, EU laws apply. See here. This makes things easier, for now.

[ChTTay]

14 minutes ago, roddy said:

this is a quirk of how the laws work.

So it’s easier for an EU citizen to bring a Non-EU one in to the U.K. at the moment? ??

[roddy]

Exactly. There also the Surinder Singh route, although not sure if that's still possible. But the idea was, take your non-EU spouse to any other EU country for three months. Then move to UK. 

 

Anyway, not sure if these apply for the OP. 

[Mila2222]

Hi . May anyone tell me how to get married between two foreigners in China?

[ChTTay]

 

On 8/11/2020 at 4:45 AM, Mila2222 said:

Hi . May anyone tell me how to get married between two foreigners in China?

Two foreigners can no longer get married in a Chinese ceremony/wedding office. 

[ChTTay]

@Monika Did you ever find your answers? Get married? Covid delay?