Greetings everyone!
Anyone go through the marriage process here recently? Here’s the plan so far:
Looking to do all this in 3 days, doable?
congrats. give yourself a little bit more time. who wants to rush 100mph through these things ?
Thanks Tommy, but I don’t have much vacation time from my job so no choice!
It actually seems doable, in theory.
MOFA/BOCA does have a next day service, and you can usually get a notary to do things on the spot. I assume AIT is also on the spot, and the Household Registration Office accepts walk-ins for marriage registration. The danger comes if your documents had an error or weren’t accepted by the Household Registration Office.
Yeah, I’ve been having my friends call MOFA/BOCA and the HHR offices to double and triple check everything. The one thing I was worried about was getting a notary appt with AIT, I remember a few years ago the notary appts was like 3-4 weeks out, but thankfully I was able to get one when I’m there.
It’s going to be stressful, but time to rock and roll!
Needs to be notorized in the TECO office in the states as well.
In theory, a BOCA/MOFA stamp on a document from a foreign mission in Taiwan(eg AIT) is equivalent to authentication by a Taiwan mission (eg TECO) abroad. I’m going to try this in practice soon 
They just want money to be honest. There’s no real reason why you need it but you can’t register in Taiwan without both. If you skip it when you’re in the US, it would be more of a pain and you’d have to mail documents back and forth or go back again.
I talked to 2 lawyers here in the states and they didn’t mention anything about the TECO.
AIT also said just come on in and sign one of their forms and I’ll be good to go.
Dealing with administrative offices. Just because you have everything figured out and on the ball doesn’t mean they will or have. One typo in a document or one person out to lunch longer than planned could destroy your plan in a millisecond. I would give myself extra time.
He can’t get the time off work.
He can always come back and restart the process next time when he has time.
But if he doesn’t try this time, he has 0% chance of successfully getting it done this time 
Good luck OP
Get yourself a Chinese name and have it on those name seal. You might be asked to use your own seal. Your soon to be wife would know where to get those.
Speaking of your name, be sure to be able to write it hehe.
Also if you’re going to a government office to sign the papers, take a picture!
Schedule an appointment at AIT right away also.
Thanks guys, yeah my time is limited so it’s kind of like a one shot deal. We’ve called the ministries office, hhr office, etc… many times and they all said the same thing for the process. But I agree, one mishap and it throws everything out of sync!
I have a chinese name, can write it, etc… so that should be ok.
Surprisingly the process worked!
I’ve been hitting a bunch of road blocks in my life lately and I was expecting my plan wasn’t going to work, but fortunately it did.
I made an appointment with AIT for the Single Affidavit (the new building looks really nice compared to the old one on Fuxing), went to the ministries office right after and paid for the 1 day expedite. Picked it up the next day, went to the household registry and got married and put my name on my wife’s household registry.
I ordered a few extra copies of the marriage certificate and household registry form just in case. I’m a married man now! The hard part begins now with the spousal visa process… But major props to the offices in Taiwan for having a fairly efficient process.
Congrats
BUMP!
Great write up @kowtow . It will definitely help everyone when going through the process.
Let me just chime in on the whole AIT Single Affidavit process. (I am a US citizen with valid ARC)
I will be heading to MOFA ASAP as check-in counter reminded me that the certificate is only valid for three weeks. I didn’t realize I could do it all in the same day.
Sounds like congratulations are in order. 
Thanks for sharing your experience.
What is this? Is this literally the only thing needed for US Citizen with ARC/APRC to get married in Taiwan? What do you need to bring to AIT?
Is there a list somewhere?
Asking for myself in the future.
Not yet.
Getting the paperwork out of the way first.
If I’m not mistaken, you need it to prove to Taiwan that you weren’t married before. It is not the only thing you need as, to my understanding, you need to go to MOFA to get it authenticated and your last step is to head to Household Registration with the fiance to register your marriage.
I brought my passport and appointment document, which I found out you DO NOT have to print out! I handed my phone to the guard at the door and he looked at it, confirmed my name and other info and let me through. Nonetheless, I did print out a copy at 7-11 just in case as I didn’t find anywhere online that people showed an e-copy of the appointment.
Here’s my report on getting the notary at Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Bureau of Consular Affairs.
They are open 8AM-5PM on weekdays and I called the phone number on the website to make sure I prepared everything I needed. You need:
Do not be fooled by the hord of people waiting, those are all locals applying for their passports. Turn the corner and there was next to no one at the notary area and I waited 2 minutes. The lady at the counter double checked my paperwork and could pay with cash or credit. I decided to pay cash, which in turn made me wait in line at the cashier for a few minutes. If you pay with credit, you do not have to go to the cashier! 400NT and 2 working days. You can pay 600NT for next day pick up.
In and out in under 15 minutes. I have to imagine it did not used to be this fast.