Married at the Embassy?

[lovezthelelz]

My SO, David, and I are working on getting our marriage license, and it's turning out to be a challenge for us to get married here in the Philippines.

I came here(from the USA) to the Philippines to be with my fiance, and we have been trying to process our marriage license since May. There's been all sorts of obstacles in our way, from securing "Legal Capacity to Marry" from the Embassy, having to attend 2 family counseling sessions(both of which were spoken in pure Filipino, so I wasn't able to understand anything, yet was still required to attend )

Our current major issue is that I am 19 years old, and it's a requirement for getting a marriage license here that any person ages 18-21 must have signed and notarized Parental Consent. My parents are both American Citizens as well, currently residing in Mexico, and we have a bit of a complicated family history. I was disowned by them when I was 17 for religious reasons, and have rarely had any contact from them since. So, it will be quite difficult and troublesome for me to secure the parental consent as I don't even have a current address with which to contact them and send them the required papers. We have sought help from the Department of Justice, we have gone to the Civil Registrar himself(who basically told us to go screw ourselves, that he wasn't even going to try to help us and that we could go ahead and file our application without the parental consent, but he will refuse us a marriage license), but nothing has worked out and the DoJ has told us that our only option left is to file a mandamus against the Civil Registrar for my right to marry following the requirements of my country of origin. This would likely be a very long and expensive process, so we are hoping it will not have to come to that.

I recently heard that as an American Citizen, I am able to exercise my rights within the American Embassy in Manila, and that this includes getting married there, following the same requirements as the US instead of having to meet Filipino requirements. Does anyone know anything about this? I have sent messages to the embassy but it's a holiday here today, so everything is closed and it may be a while before I hear back from them. Just curious if anyone else has ever heard about this or been married at an embassy

[TwoThree]

https://travel.state.gov/content/pas.../marriage.html

U.S. embassy and consulate personnel cannot perform marriages in foreign countries.

Sorry, doesn't seem like it's possible.

[mllebamako]

Like TwoThree said, American embassies will not preform marriages. However, they will provide you with a document, "Legal capacity to contract marriage". The instructions on how to obtain that are here. But it seems like your biggest obstacle is the age requirements in the Philippines. As far as I can tell, you have three options:

1. Wait until you are 21. (best option in my opinion)
2. Apply for the US fiancé visa (this is only a good option if you are planning on moving to the US anyway. Expensive/time-consuming option).
3. Bribe the civil registrar.

[Dziubka]

Excuse me if this is a stupid idea. I don't really know much about these things.

But can't you get married in another country?

[lovezthelelz]

Like TwoThree said, American embassies will not preform marriages. However, they will provide you with a document, "Legal capacity to contract marriage". But it seems like your biggest obstacle is the age requirements in the Philippines. As far as I can tell, you have three options:

1. Wait until you are 21. (best option in my opinion)
2. Apply for the US fiancé visa (this is only a good option if you are planning on moving to the US anyway. Expensive/time-consuming option).
3. Bribe the civil registrar.

Ah, well that's quite disappointing to learn. My fiance personally knows a couple who were married at the Philippine Embassy in Malaysia I believe it was, so we were hoping that would be an option for us as well.

As regards to the legal capacity document, I have had it on hand since May but it matters little to the CR; he was quite frustrating to deal with. We researched and read the Philippine family code and believe we found sort of "loopholes" in the code that actually allow a couple to marry without the consent, and we asked the Civil Registrar to let us show him what we read and if we were wrong he could explain to us what it meant, but he flat out refused to open his books. It says in the family code that if a person between of ages of 18 and 21 gets married without parental consent, their marriage is still valid, the only consequence is that my marriage would be annullable by parents, should they choose to do so before my 21st birthday. I have no fear of that happening, and we asked the CR to explain why that was in the code if it is not possible to get a marriage license without it, but he just became angry and said "Do not make me open my books, I do not want to."

As for the 3 options you mentioned, waiting 2 years would be very hard on us as I'm trying to get a residency visa in the PH so I can get a job. Can't do that until we are married, and after a year of being here, my savings are starting to deplete so the sooner I am able to get that, the better. Option 2 is irrelevant, we have no intention of moving to the US anytime in the foreseeable future. Option 3 is actually probably the easiest, that seems to be how a lot of things are done here(we were explaining our predicament to some Filipino friends and they said the CR was probably so adamant because he was waiting for us to offer him money, since I as a foreigner am supposed to be rich), but that would be risky and I don't want to cause more trouble.

Well, thanks for the help and input everyone, I hope we are able to sort this out soon.

[CynicalQuixotic]

Does your SO make enough to feasibly support you both? What are your options as to working under the table? Could your SO ask around? It's not an ideal situation, but if you could find yourself a job waiting tables or teaching English, even if you don't contribute much financially, you could possibly find yourself a gig to tide you two over until you turn 21. You are still very, very young. I realize you're in a precarious family situation and I don't doubt your love your SO, but I think if you have options--even not-so-legal ones--waiting two years would probably do both of you an enormous amount of good.