Legalising Marriage in UAE
Mar 29th 2017, 7:01 pm
#1
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Joined: Jul 2016
Posts: 14
Legalising Marriage in UAE
Hi all,
I am getting married in August, and my fiancee will be joining me from the UK.
Has anyone here had any experience of working in Dubai, going back to the UK to get married, but then coming back to Dubai with their husband/wife. We are having a muslim ceremony so our actual wedding event won't have the civil registration, something we have to do seperately but i hear the costs of getting marriage certificates attested for Dubai Sponsor Visa purposes is very expensive.
Would it be possible for me to get legally married here despite my wife not having a UAE residence visa?
Thank you for any help!
I am getting married in August, and my fiancee will be joining me from the UK.
Has anyone here had any experience of working in Dubai, going back to the UK to get married, but then coming back to Dubai with their husband/wife. We are having a muslim ceremony so our actual wedding event won't have the civil registration, something we have to do seperately but i hear the costs of getting marriage certificates attested for Dubai Sponsor Visa purposes is very expensive.
Would it be possible for me to get legally married here despite my wife not having a UAE residence visa?
Thank you for any help!
Mar 30th 2017, 12:22 pm
#2
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 2,900
Re: Legalising Marriage in UAE
Yes, I went through something similar, some years ago. Though my wife is from Italy and not the UK.
For a while we explored having an Islamic ceremony in the UAE - though we are not Muslim, and at the time, only I had a residence visa as my (then) fiancee was still in Italy. Even though she did not have a residence visa, it was completely legal and easy to organise, my local and Arab expatriate friends promised to have it set up in a few days, and not prohibitively expensive. If you go that route, my advice would be, don't try to organise it yourself, as a local or Arab friend to do that. They will know, or will know someone who knows, or will know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows, a judge and the path will be cleared out for you.
Then, no need for attestations, since you have valid UAE marriage documents in Arabic.
Though we opted not to do that and got married in Italy, from memory (and this is a somewhat hazy memory as it was some years ago) it was not difficult to get a spouse visa for her, just the usual paper chase with Italian certifications and then UAE Embassy/Rome authentications which proceeded without difficulty but on the normal time scale for those things. Once that was done, I submitted it in the UAE and the visa was issued in 36 hours.
Again, when you go to submit at the visa section, take a local/Arab expatriate friend or colleague with you, as they know how to navigate that labyrinth.
Unfortunately I do not remember the cost - but it was not prohibitive.
I could have arranged the spouse visa through my employer, but they had a reputation for really dragging their feet on those, so I opted just to pay and get it done myself.
Hope that helps.
For a while we explored having an Islamic ceremony in the UAE - though we are not Muslim, and at the time, only I had a residence visa as my (then) fiancee was still in Italy. Even though she did not have a residence visa, it was completely legal and easy to organise, my local and Arab expatriate friends promised to have it set up in a few days, and not prohibitively expensive. If you go that route, my advice would be, don't try to organise it yourself, as a local or Arab friend to do that. They will know, or will know someone who knows, or will know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows, a judge and the path will be cleared out for you.
Then, no need for attestations, since you have valid UAE marriage documents in Arabic.
Though we opted not to do that and got married in Italy, from memory (and this is a somewhat hazy memory as it was some years ago) it was not difficult to get a spouse visa for her, just the usual paper chase with Italian certifications and then UAE Embassy/Rome authentications which proceeded without difficulty but on the normal time scale for those things. Once that was done, I submitted it in the UAE and the visa was issued in 36 hours.
Again, when you go to submit at the visa section, take a local/Arab expatriate friend or colleague with you, as they know how to navigate that labyrinth.
Unfortunately I do not remember the cost - but it was not prohibitive.
I could have arranged the spouse visa through my employer, but they had a reputation for really dragging their feet on those, so I opted just to pay and get it done myself.
Hope that helps.
