eternal-optimist

Hi everyone

I have a question re getting married in Canada. Would my British fiance have to wait a certain amount of time in Canada before we could register to get married and then actually wed? I.E. If he comes here as a visitor, and then we go apply to get married, are there any known time discrepancies, as there are with the UK version of getting married?

We initially wanted to wed in UK, but now see that from registering to actually getting married, that takes upwards of 4 weeks!!

Does anyone know if this is in fact true? If you want to get married in UK you have to wait before you can apply for the various stages - registration/license/actually getting married??

We just need to be sure before we can get the ball rolling.
Thank you in advance

Aviator

Look at is as a chance to come to your senses

DaveLovesDee

I'm a British Citizen (on a Visitor Permit extension at the time) who married my Canadian wife in Ontario in 2006.

I'm not sure of other Provinces but we went to the local Civic Centre, both produced our paperwork (my UK divorce certificate had to be notarised by a Canadian lawyer), and booked their wedding chapel for a few week later.

The clerk also gave us a list of local people who are authorised to perform marriage ceremonies along with where to find more names.

I think you have up to 3 months after being issued the licence to get married.

Here you'll find lots of useful information on getting married in Ontario. I would think most Provinces are similar, but you'll need to double-check with wherever you're planning on getting married.

MR79

its easier to get married in Canada then UK, in BC one of you goes to one of those insurance companies and applies for a marriage license, once this is done you can get married within 30 days and then you get your marriage certificate a few weeks after that...the partner who is not Canadian can enter on a visitor visa to get married...its a pretty simple process tbh....not sure how it works in other provinces.good luck..

Aviator

In BC the marriage license is valid for 3 months. These are the BC rules http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/marriage/howto.html

BristolUK

I married in Quebec with no problems. My Canadian wife (to be) was already living in Quebec. I was in Canada as a visitor in April...we had an interview...paid the fee and fixed a date for July.

I had another visit in May and returned in July for the wedding...returned to England to sell up/work notice and then came back to Canada and the following month applied for Sponsorship/PR.

Clay Buster

I went back to Alberta a week before we got married (me Brit, she Canuck) which was plenty of time to get the marriage licence.

The only hassle with the actual wedding was getting the pre-marriage counselling required by the church in which we were wed! We ended up doing most of it by email, and only meeting the (incredibly strange....) counsellor a few days before the wedding.

One further hassle was the immigration officer at Calgary Airport. I neglected to put the rings on my customs declaration (on the not unreasonable grounds that since we were likely to live in Dubai where I got the rings, and we now do, why would I need to pay import duty?), and she also thought it strange that I still had a valid work permit in my passport while no longer living in Canada. She made me declare the rings (cost me $1,000), cancel the WP, and she manually entered an expiry date on my entry stamp of 6 weeks hence.

lmartin999

I went to Vegas. Very quick and easy for a weekend away Actually I've done it twice

Helen Parnell

i have relatives that married in Alberta and yes it is much easier. He (the canuk) had to be in the UK 4 weeks before, file loads of paperwork proving his previous wife had died and it was just hassle.

So she came over here, and they married the following week at their house and lunch at Banff springs

dboy

It's a much more straight forward here to get married (and divorced for that matter) than the UK.

I too married on a visitor permit about 3 months after I arrived. After filing the marriage certificate I applied for sponsorship by my then spouse. That was not a straight forward matter. It took almost a year before I could work - although that was 17 years ago and I had an 'issue' that slowed things down in my case.

lmartin999

I did my own divorce in BC. Very easy

ann m

I'm intrigued by several poster's comments on here.

If you come over as a 'visitor' then get married in Canada - what happens after that? Do you immediately apply for a spousal wotsit? Is there any requirement for having lived together a certain amount of time?

If the newly married visitor cannot get the visitor visa extended (for whatever reason) does the newlywed then have to return to the UK?

My brain has gone down the "this must surely get abused" route

Clay Buster

Two ways of getting PR - you can apply from within Canada (sending application to Buffalo, NY), in which case you still have to leave the country every 6 months to comply with your visit visa, and you cannot work of course. Or, you can apply from your home country which is often quicker. In that case, there's nothing to stop you staying with your spouse on a visit visa but if you're called for interview it will be in your home country and your passport will eventually have to be sent to the High Commission or Embassy in your home country to get the PR visa put in. Either way, you have to enter Canada from outside to activate PR.

While there's no requirement for a set time spent together before marriage, the form asks for details and supporting evidence, such as wedding photos, homeymoon details, etc, to prove the marriage is genuine.

When leaving the country, i.e. for those making an in-Canada application, no one make you go back to the UK! You can cross the border into the USA and come back same day.

NoreenC

My Canadian husband came to the UK on a Right of Residence Visa because his grandparents were British. He came in November and we were married at the beginning of December 2002. We both had to be resident for 21 days, which he didn't find a problem. We had to show proof of our divorces to the Registar (not a lawyer), but again that wasn't a problem. It was a second marriage for both of us and we didn't find that there were any difficulties. We were married in a Baptist Church.

Anantsiaq

I was living in Quebec and married a Scot living in the UK. It would have been best to marry in the UK with both our families present but I was working and did not have the time to remain in the UK for the specified period. In the end we married just over the border in New York State - one week after applying for the marriage ceremony. When we arrived, the justice of the peace who worked in a hardware store across the road came over, donned a black robe and married us. The sight of his sneakers beneath the robe made me laugh, and we have a lovely photo displaying them. I fortunately had a friend living right by the border, and we held a small reception in her garden. It was all delightful and very inexpensive.