Marriage Preparation

Planning your wedding is one thing but preparing your documents is a crazy whirlwind process. But don't take this at heart, it will all be a worthy journey. You wanted this right? so better make it right.

I'm just summarizing the steps of how we ended up as Mr and Mrs Cornista as an Overseas Filipino Workers in this time of pandemic.

If you wished to be wed in the church or even at the consulate, you will be required to get a LCCM Certificate (Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage) in which you need to prepare the following:

• Accomplished Online Application Certificate of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage Form/Marriage Announcement Form - Booking online as you may have to have a little bit of wait.
• Accomplished Joint Affidavit of Witnesses Form, (originally signed by 2 witnesses; preferably both Filipinos or with 1 Filipino witness) - share a meal or have coffee with your witness as there personal presence is not required in appointment.

• Accomplished Affidavit of Singleness Form (originally signed by the Filipino applicant/s)
• Original and three (3) photocopies of DFA-apostilled PSA Certificate of No Marriage (CENOMAR) of both Bride and Groom
• CENOMAR must bear the complete and correct full name (first name, middle name, last name) of the contracting parties and their parents
• CENOMAR is valid for 6 months from the date of issuance and it must be "For Marriage Purposes "
• Original DFA-apostilled PSA Birth Certificate of Bride and Groom (for Filipino national only )
• Apostilled PSA is the new Red Ribbon that was required for ofw's in Dubai before, as we are not able to physically go home, we required a 3rd party agency to help us which was through this fb page: https://www.facebook.com/KabayanPinoyUAE, take note they did help us getting Appostilled Birth Cert and Cenomar but due to a spelling error, it also became the reason that we have to postpone our reception and almost cost us our wedding scheduled to be moved as they have not processed it at a given timeframe with even weeks of allowance for us to make sure. I have to ask help from their Qatar staff to expedite the process. I suggest go to LBC as they have a better tracking service.
• Passport Copies and Visa Copies of Groom, Bride, Witnesses - please make sure to also include on the passport copy the part where the owner has his/her signature and not just the details alone.
• Two Recent passport-size colored photos of bride and groom.
• Fee approximately 200 AED.

There are few other requirements but as it is not applicable to us, I didn't include it in this article, credits to PCG Dubai where the details above generated, also visit directly the link http://www.dubaipcg.dfa.gov.ph/services/2014-04-16-10-40-17/2016-03-01-02-27-02 for booking appointment and further details. 

LCCM Certificate is a must requirement and it is non-negotiable. Once all documents are accepted during you appointment, your names will be posted for the marriage bann (just incase you already got married) on the PCG - Dubai website for 15 days (3 sundays) but I'm not sure. You can then go to the church with your LCCM receipt so that you can also start the wedding bann on the church side which is also about 3 weeks.

We are both registered as parishioners of St Mary's Church hence if we opt to be wed at St Anthony de Padua, Ras Al Khaimah or St Francis of Jebel Ali, we still have to abide with the requirements of St Mary's who will be giving the clearance to other parishes to proceed with the wedding. But much to our surprise, when we arrived to the Parish office of St Mary's to submit our requirements as at that time they are still not allowing any weddings due to strict COVID restrictions, they happily advised that we can be their first Filipino couple to be wed with Fr Chito ever since the lockdown, and we feel so blessed. The following are the marriage requirements for Filipinos:

• Certificate of Baptism, fresh and original copy, "for marriage purpose" - please make sure that all spellings are correct and better put the full middle name and not just the middle initial.
• Certificate of Confirmation, original - spell out your middle name, if not done in the Philippines, you can call St Mary's to schedule as they are now conducting this online, Godwin did it for 12 Fridays.
• Must attend the Marriage Preparation Course - as due to lockdowns, we manage to get our Marriage Prep Course online and at that time, St Mary's have not open for it hence registered in St Michael Abu Dhabi and have sent us certificates of attendance.
• LCCM Certificate (above details) - some already wed couple may have not needing this but this will eventually be required when you register your marriage later on, and this is really a must.
• Passport Copies (front page with Visa Page) and two (2) passport size photographs each.
• 15 days wedding bann
• Individual Interview - chat with Fr Chito was really quite memorable, much need prior to the wedding and due to document delay, this happened the night prior to our wedding day. 
• Certificate Fee

We are also informed that only 2 witness, us couple and the Priest will be the only ones allowed at the church and that's all we really need. See details on our Super intimate wedding in this link: https://govid2020.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-super-intimate-wedding.html

I suggest you prepare all the requirements simultaneously, during our preparation, it wasn't really easy, as documents took so long to arrive due to pandemic restrictions, incorrect spellings, few arguments and even a lot of tears shed, but if it's meant to be it will be and with God's grace, we couldn't be happier with this bitter sweet journey.

#GoVid2020