After the wedding
Ok, a few more things are to do after the wedding
Details follow further down....
The following activities have to be done when the wedding has taken place in Germany:
In addition to the normal German wedding certificate you should request at least 2 International wedding certificates. You will need some of these for later. This is a simply document in English and German. In addition there are two forms which you will get from the Philippine Embassy as well which have to be filled out and signed and stamped by the wedding officer. (HTML copies are available here! Wedding-Report Registration for Passport Change). With these two documents and the other papers mentioned on the documents you have to go to the Philippine Embassy in Bonn or in Berlin to get the name change registered in the Passport of the bride. In case the name of the husband should be changed as well, this will be done in the "Standesamt".
When the wedding has taken place in the Philippines:
There are two possibilities: either you process all your papers yourself (all the required steps are documented below), or you tell a marriage consultant to process all your papers. They typically organize everything until you got all the papers you require for some fee. The total amount including the wedding procedure itself can be around 8000 Pesos.
After the wedding, you need to go to NSO-Manila to apply for your "Authenticated Marriage Certificate". You can only get this in NSO-Manila. There are two Offices of the NSO-Manila, first is the Authentication Unit in NSO Lot,East Avenue,Quezon City (near the Land Registration Authority or LRA and facing the Social Security System or SSS). Applications can only be made in this office. After you applied and paid the necessary tax, they will be given a receipt and you should keep this receipt for getting your "Marriage Certificate" in NSO Civil Registry Division ,Vibal Bldg. Corner EDSA and Times Street West Triangle 1104 Quezon City. If in case that you got a negative result, you need to go back to the "Local Registry" where you got your wedding license. Ask them to send it to Manila by Special Order, you need to pay for the amount they will incurred to send it to Manila via LBC or Special Transfer because the Local Registry won't pay it. And again don't forget to take the receipt of the transmittal of the Special Transfer and the negative result. You also should ask a letter of recommendation there. After this transaction, you can go back again to the NSO Civil Registry Division (in EDSA). You apply again and give all this documents to the officer-in-charge. Now you should be able to finally get your: "Authenticated Marriage Certificate"
So finally your wedding certificate has been certified 3 times: :
The certification is usually required for the Philippine Embassy in Germany.
They need this to be able to change the name in the passport of the wife. Of
course all this would normally not be required when the name in the passport has
already been changed in the NSO in the Philippines. But you would still need
these certifications as you will have to register your marriage in the German
Standesamt as well. As the German embassy in Manila does not legalize papers
anymore, these certifications (Apostillen in German) are required and sufficient
to accept the fact in the German Standesamt.
For the visa which your wife now will need for Germany you apply for "Family reunification" "Familienzusammenführung" . You will need two passport pictures for your wife again!
Back in Germany:
After the wedding your wife will get a visa (family reunion) and she will come to Germany. Here again a few things have to be done:
1. Arrange a family insurance (risk insurance, health insurance....)
2. Then you have to go to the marriage office (Standesamt) to change the names (costs around 30 DM, depends on the area where you live. A few places have different rules, sometimes you will need a certificate form your employer, your landlord, your salary slip etc.)
3. Register your wife in the city hall (Einwohnermeldeamt). You will need the passport of your wife and the wedding certificate. Important do this before the next step, it is required there.
4. Now you have to go the Alien Office now to get your "Residence Permit", (Aufenthaltstitel) stamped in the passport of the bride. This will either be done for three year, or will be repeated for one year three times in a row. After that you will get the unlimited residence permit. You will need the passport again, one passport photo and the registration of your wife from the city hall.
It is possible that the Alien Office asks for the following papers from the German partner:
- Income certificate
- Proof of residence
- Passport
- Wedding certificate
The income certificate and the proof of residence are not required according to the German law, but they love to ask for these papers. You can insist that they are not required, this should not have any influence on the granting of the residence permit.
5. Change your tax class to III and order the tax card for your wife (City hall). According to the law it is sufficient when your wife is living in Germany. Sometimes they do not want to change the tax class to III when there is no residence permit yet. Sometimes as well they request the "family history book" (Familienstammbuch), even when this is not required when the wedding has been done outside Germany. But this is not critical because the tax class change is automatically done for the whole year when you married, even when it is not certified on your tax card.
6. Marriage Office (Standesamt)
Change of name (30 DM)
Family History Book (Familienstammbuch), optional (60 DM)
Certified copies (13 DM) of
Birth certificates
Wedding certificate
"Abstammungsurkunde" of husband
7. City Hall, change of passport (name change)
8. Driving license (up to one year after entry into Germany only the exam, no
training (Fahrschule) required)
Tip: Examination sheets in many languages, including
Tagalog are available via this website: http://www.lehrboegen.de/
9. BamF (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge). This office has access to money from the European Community which is dedicated to the integration of foreigners into the respective country of the European Union. In this case4 this means that they subsidize language classes at high class language schools like Berlitz. The student has to pay just one Euro per hour, the rest is all paid by BamF!,
Now you can live happily together until the end of your days...