Marrying in a Consulate

Legal Legal - Marriage
#1

Hi, here is my short story:

I’m going to marry my TW fiancee in July in Macao, at the Portuguese Consulate. I chose this way because getting married here is troublesome (and I do live 345KM from the closest TRO, back in Portugal). We got all our papers for us to get married there, and even had to ask for special permission, because the official consulate for Taiwan region is the Beijing one (as you can imagine, not good).
I know that I have to get all the documents translated and notarized, but I wonder if they can do it in the TRO of Macao or if I have to go back to Lisbon to do that. As Portuguese is an official language of Macao, they have to do it, in my POV.
I am not asking you people about this, just a thought.
My thing came when I went to ask my consulate about my fiancee papers - guess what - the papers only need to be notarized and recognized by the Taiwanese Foreign Affairs Office, which is extremelly helpfull (no stupid things as having it notarized in a TRO or whatever somewhere). I wonder what kind of recognition Taiwan wants from the world, when the government simply does not recognize any document signed by the other Foreign Affairs Ministry Offices, while my country recognizes Taiwan one???
I didn’t even had to translate anything, as they accepted the originals…
I don’t know if I just had luck or something, but it is extremelly easy for me to marry my fiancee in Macao…

#2

Hey boogie

My SO would like to marry in Macau because it’s more romantic than HK, is it easy beacuse you’re portugese?

The website says you have to be a resident in Macau to marry there.

#3

Your ease of getting married in Macao is not necessarily relevant.

It depends on what you want to do afterwards.

If you want to live in Taiwan with a Taiwanese wife, then you will need to get relevant marriage documentation “stamped” by the nearest Taiwan (ROC) overseas office. You will also need translations into Chinese and/or English … and it is a good idea to get those “stamped” too.

Good luck with your newly married life.

#4

I can marry in the Portuguese Consulate or Embassy, as any Portuguese can, as long as I prove I am a resident in the jurisdiction area of it (well, Taiwan is a special case, they let me go with it … ).

As far as the relevant documentation “stamped” in the nearest Taiwan Overseas office, word from MOFA is that it is not like that. It has to go to the country from where the paper is coming from (they simply say, it is Portuguese document, so go to Lisbon). Anyway, I chose Macau because of 2 aspects:

  1. It is a lot closer than Portugal
  2. They recognize my fiancees documents in Chinese, so even less worries.

Another thing is all the BS that the MOFA is giving to us. They claim that they do it this way because everyone else does it. They told us that if a Taiwanese wants to get his certificate recognized, he/she needs to get it stamped by a notary, ROCMOFA, AIT and God Himself. Well, we did go check out this and it is, as you all know, pure BS.

P.S. For the countries where you don’t have Taiwan Office, you need to get it translated, notarized (which normally means that the translation also has to be done officialy), signed by the MOFA, then go to the nearest Taiwan Office and get it stamped. I know this because you cannot imagine how long it took to get the documents done to open the branch office of my company here (company is from Luxembourg).

#5

News is, we got married and the Taiwan Overseas Office in Macau recognized our papers. so we aree all set (just missing my criminal record, that has to come from Portugal). So in the end, and after getting all the names of the supervisors (for later use) we could get it done.

#6

mr_boogie, i’m almost in the same case as you.
please clarify what you did. did i understand right:
you and your lady married in Portuguese Embassy in Macao and notaried marriage certificate in Taiwan Overseas office in Macao?
As far as i know you have to notary all documents exactly in Taiwan office of YOUR country. there is exception for countries having no Taiwan offices, but i guess your country has. So, you can’t notary documents in other country. Did you already got your JFRV?

#7

According to regulations regarding authentication of foreign documents, authentication must be done by the embassy or representative office in the country the document is from. It is not based on the nationality of the person requesting authentication. Thus documents issued in Macau would be authenticated by the Macau representative office.

#8

jlickm, not correct. This document will be issued by Portugese consul which is Portugese teritory, not Macao’s.
If document will be issued by Macao then no problem, it has to be notaried by Taiwan repres.office in Macao. And in this case we will get another problem. Marriage sertificate has to be issued by country of foreigner, it means by Portugal country (that’s why he want to marry in Portugal embassy). Macao’s marriage certificate will be useless unless he is Macao citizen.

#9

What exactly is this document? I certainly did not have to produce one. Think about it – why would a country issue a marriage certificate if you didn’t get married there?

#10

sandman, i think it’s better to ask mr_boogie why he decided to marry in Macao when he lives in Taiwan. especially taiwanese marriage certificate don’t need to be notaried. may be he got list of required documents where written that she has to provide document from his country.

#11

i’m keeping paper called “Resident Visa Application Requirements for Applicants as Alien Spouse of an ROC Citizen” which clerk in BOCA gave to me. on upper right corner some code “VE001”. I think this paper can get anyone who will ask about required documents.
Here is quote of 1 required document:

i even copied all Chinglish things like “does not have” to make original phrase untouched. I can scan and send this paper who need it to proof that not my imagination.

#12

Yes. Exactly. BOCA is saying that if you cannot get a marriage registration certificate because there’s no such thing, your marriage certificate will suffice.
This is how it is for the UK also, because UK does not have such a document. Therefore I had to provide ONLY my Taiwan marriage certificate. This is also the case with the other people on these threads and in fact with EVERY foreign person I know who got married here.

It is getting a little tiresome listening to you saying “not possible” because some fuckwit pen-pusher at BOCA told you so. It IS possible. It IS done all the time by people from many different countries.

Just gather your documents and submit them.

#13

Why I decided to get married in Macau and not here?
Simple, they take care of all my documents and they accept my wife’s documents as they are, just notarized and approved by the ROCMOFA. As for my documents to be able to be accepted here in Taiwan, I would have to wait for a Single Certificate from my government (and as I lived in 3 countries in the past 24 months, I need them to be approved by 3 different embassies (portuguese law)) and that would take some months. Then I would need to get them officially translated (notaries in Portugal only notarize translations, not official documents), send them to Lisbon (where the people are less than helpfull (I know it because of my criminal record, which I had to ask my family (mom, eldest brother, sister-in-law, uncle) to get it done)) and then we could get married.

By the way, our marriage certificate was accepted by the Macau government because the lady in the Macau office is of Portuguese nationality, so she just gave a quick call to the Portuguese Consulate (which is by far one of the most important places in Macau for the local citizens), talked with the supervisor there (she had just married us) and they stamped on it. We married at 11am and at 3pm we had it done…