Marrying a Foreigner Part I

I thought I might as well blog about this. After all ... I married a foreigner. A Filipino to be exact. To all those Malaysians thinking of marrying a foreigner ... well, I won't say think again. However, there are things that you should know about.

For starters, marrying you, a Malaysian will not automatically make your spouse a permanent resident of Malaysia or a citizen of Malaysia. Surprised? Well ... that's how it is. That's to prevent sham or fake marriages.

Anyway ... I just wanna share some information. Now, I married my wife in Malaysia i.e. I did my marriage registration thingy in Malaysia. Lets not get confused here ... its different from getting married in a foreign country and coming back to Malaysia to register that marriage. What I meant was ... my marriage was in Malaysia.

Now ... what I am going to say next probably applies only to Filipinos. But generally ... its about the same.

First, my wifey had to go to the Philippines National Statistics Office to get a certification that she is single. Next ... bring that certificate to the Office of the President of the Philippines to be endorsed and certified that the earlier certificate is true and correct etc etc. They will issue a certificate to certify that the first certificate is true correct yada yada yada ...

After all that ... bring both certificates (National Stats Office & Office of President) to the Department of Foreign Affairs to be endorsed. And here we go again ... the Dept of Foreign Affairs now will certify that the first 2 certificates are true correct yada yada yada ...

Now... you have 3 certificates, each certifying one another. Bring all those 3 certificates and wifey ... bring all of them to the Philippines Embassy in KL. Yup. The Phils Embassy. Here, you ask them to issue a Certificate of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage. In order to issue that, they will require all the earlier 3 certificates and also your in-laws (girl's parents) to swear an affidavit their daughter is single virgin (kidding) and give their blessings to the marriage.

So now ... you will have (1) cert from Stats Office, (2) cert from President Office, (3) cert from Dept of Foreign Affairs and (4) Cert of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage.

With all the 4 documents ... bring all of them to the our Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs @ Wisma Putra, Putrajaya. They will then certify that the documents are true correct yada yada yada. They will just put their endorsements onto the certificates. Once endorsed ... you go to the Marriage Registrar at Putrajaya and hand in all the documents together with your application to get married.

Oh ... almost forgot. Before you can submit your application for a licence to get married, your wifey (the foreigner) must be in Malaysia for at least 11 days continuously (I think it was 11 ... errr either 11 or 14 days, check this yourself on the application form).

So you submit your application form with all the documents and copies of passport, photos etc and you set a date to come back to do the registration process. Its usually about a month to 2 months later. During this time, your application will be posted up on a notice board for those people who wish to object.

Oh ... I was told that all those assistant registrar of marriages, like those in Thean Hou Temple or the Churches or even the branch level of the Marriage Registry will not be able to process your application. You need to go to Putrajaya where the HQ is in order to get it processed.

So there you go ... Good Luck and all the best in all those paperwork!

By the way, do go to the Marriage Registry to check it out and not take all my words above as the correct procedures. They could have implemented new rules, new procedures, new requirements etc etc ...