Getting Married in the UK
 

Hi there,

Hoping someone here can help!

Im a British Citizen, OH is Canadian. We are getting married in the UK. Does he need a visa? We have checked out the UKBA website, but it isn't very clear to us!
When we went to register our marriage last year they told us we didn't need a visa, but now we have read the UKBA website we are just confused!

Can anyone help!!

Thanks in advance

WM

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

Sorry I am confused, are you already married and visiting the UK for a 'wedding' ie not the legal bit?

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

We are getting married (hopefully!!) in England. My OH is a Canadian Citizen, so we were wondering if he needs a visa to enter to get married. We have no intentions of staying. We are just flying over to get married, then we are coming back to Canada.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/vi...g/marriage-cp/

:)

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

This gives the details: Getting married

The issue is: is your intended spouse subject to immigration control? This provides the answer: Do I need a visa?

Edit: for some reason the above link doesn't work. Try this page and enter the relevant details:Do I need a visa?

The answer appears to be "no" provided he will leave within 6 months of arrival.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

We were thinking 'no' as well. Then we read another page, and it seemed to make out that we did need a visa! :unsure:

We are only staying for 3 weeks.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

You do need to apply for a marriage visa.

I will look up the details. My wife is Canadian and we DID have to do this.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

From your 1st link:

"You must obtain a visa before you can come to the UK as a visitor for marriage or civil partnership. The Do you need a visa? page contains more information."

Yes, they will need a visa to get married.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

Ok so here is the one part

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/vi...tion/visiting/

"Visiting for other reasons

This is the Visa you need

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/vi...riage-cp/visa/

The application is VAF1F. You will have your biometrics taken at a UK Visa office. My wife used the one in Toronto.

Our Visa was initially refused! This is not a walk in the park to get. You do need to document the proof that you will be leaving the UK after.



This can be done online for Canadian Citizens.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

Can you remember how long the visa took? It looks like we can apply online.

I guess if it comes down to it we will just have our humanist wedding and not worry with the registry office bit! Looks like you only need a visa if it is a legal wedding!!

Thanks everyone for your help! I read so many pages so many times it just ended up as a big blur!

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

I will also add that if you going to be getting married in a church you need to make arrangement for a "Common Licence" to be issued.

This caused us some juggling as my wife was only in the UK for a week before the weeding and it can take 14 days to apply for. She had to travel to the uk as a visitor before sending the passport off to immigration. The licence is only valid for 3 months. So then we had a 3 month window to get the marriage visa. Stress isn't the word. But it was certainly worth it.

If you do have any specific questions please drop me a PM as I don't check on here all that often.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

From memory it was about two weeks for the initial application to be rejected and the same for the re submitted application to be processed.

I cannot emphasise enough that when it comes to your information don't think that because you are British you don't need to provide any supporting docs! Throw everything you can at them. All in all it was a good dry run for us getting everything together for me to apply to Canada and in the end we may have been OTT but we couldn't afford to take another chance.

When we applied the Visa was still being processed through Ottawa. This is not the case anymore and it gets done in the states so I can't say what time this may take now.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

The second link above, which didn't work, suggested otherwise as Canadians are not "subject to immigration control" (when one does the test).

The website is pretty useless as there is no "intend to get married" choice when inputting the reason to visit the UK. I suggest the OP contacts the necessary authorities to obtain a definitive answer.

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

If you do the 'do I need a visa' questionnaire, it states:

you are a national of Canada.
you are coming to UK to Visit.
you are normally and legally living in Canada.

Although you do not need a visa, you may want to obtain one before you travel (for example, if you have a criminal record or you have previously been refused permission to enter the UK). And you will need a visa if you want to come here in some categories of visitor (such as a visitor for marriage or civil partnership).

Re: Getting Married in the UK
 

OK