Getting married in India (Foreigner + Indian)

edwardseco

Yes, Nick has it very well put & highly recommended for the improved atmosphere. Also, reassures your Indian inlaws & invitees that this official & not a "Hyderabadi" marriage. I have no idea of the cost as it is best left to the Indian side to negotiate. Also helped, since I am from Tejas, that I showed dozens of family and street photos in which nobody was seem packing a rod.
Great tamasha and a lot of fun. My best wishes from a similar experience nearly 30 years ago in the then Poona..

edwardseco

n not m, I hate qwerty..

FinnishGirl

Hi!
I am a finnish girl and I am living in Finland with my indian boyfriend. We would want to marry in India and register it afterwards in Finland but now I've been reading about this that you have to stay in India atleast 30days because you have to do that intension to marry notice or what was it. We just can't stay there so long for holiday. So what I wanted to ask is, is that really necessary that we stay 30 days? Could we do that notice thingy in Indian embassy here or such? Worried we will have to marry here first itself and then have religious seremony in India. Less paperwork but.. less romantic too.

Valini

You say that you want to get married in India then register it in Finland. Isn't that just the easiest way then? Have a ceremony and reilgious wedding in India, then when you return to Finland (no worries for visas since he's already a resident) you go and register your marriage legally with the Registrar in Finland. I honeslty think you'll be saving yourself a lot of hassle. enjoy the indian wedding, with all of his fmaily and traditions, then have a simple ceremony, why not invite all of your firends who can't fly out to India and at the same time make it legal?
Makes sense to me. And you get two 'do's'.

edwardseco

Good sense Victoria. If the couple had a local person to do the initial registration process in India. This has the advantage of reassuring the Indian family that the foren intentions are real. My inlaws were super careful about this! But, doing it in Finland does allow Fin friends and relatives to participate..

mirjamd

As especially Nick and me have pointed out before, there is nothing, absolutely nothing romantic about the marriage registration in India. The same person who registers births, deaths, and property will register your marriage, probably grudgingly, because he expects a bribe.

And I don't know about Finland, but getting the Dutch government to recognize the marriage document is a lot of hassles in more annoying government offices and costs a lot of money.

An Indian wedding on the other hand can be an awesome affair! It was truly one of the greatest days in my life (yep, the cliche is true ).

So leave the official part for Finland, which is no doubt a lot more romantic than it is in India!

Nick-H

They'll be doing all those things at the same time as registering your marriage. You don't even get any privacy!

edwardseco

Aggreed!!

edwardseco

So much so I threw in a bonus g..

FinnishGirl

What I meant was that we would like to have religious ceremony, then register it as well in India and then legalize it in Finland. Sorry for being confusing. But I understood that for this you have to stay (more than) 30 days for. The thing is that if we "register" in Finland we would only be legally married from that day, not from when we had our ceremony in India.. Well maybe that doesn't matter. I guess its most likely what we have to do anyway. It will be a bit of a headache to explain it to the future in-laws though .. This all seems a bit confusing to me as I am used to the idea that on the day of ceremony you are legally married as it normally happens in Finland.

EDWARDSECO:
"If the couple had a local person to do the initial registration process in India."
Do you mean we could ask someone in India to do that first part for us? I thought you have to do it personally, also you have to give proof that you have been in India for 30days, so wouldn't that be breaking the law or null the legality of the marriage?

I read that the law might be different in different states, anyone here who knows how it is in Andhra Pradesh?

Nick-H

Why?

You are just creating problems for yourselves.

Many Indian couples register their marriages in the country in which they are settled.

But, as to the laws relating to Indian marriage, that depends on what kind you want?

FinnishGirl

We are not looking to create any problems, why we want to legally marry there is because of him and his family and because it makes perfect sense. I don't like the idea of having a ceremony all the way in India and then still not being legally married. In any case that might just be what we have to do.

I just wanted to know if the Special Marriage Act is any different in Andhra Pradesh. (30days stay in India etc)

Valini

Asfar as I'm aware, the Special Marriage Act doesn't change regardless of the state. Unless someone knows something I don't... (strong possibility!)

edwardseco

I arrived several days before. Many things can be adjusted if you have a local contact or relative. I don't have first hand experience with Andhra. I am guessing that its stricter there than elsewhere because of the scandal of "Hyderabadi" marriages..


Nick's point is that for some bureaucratic countries such as the Netherlands it involves more steps. In the US not. Your visa situation seems straight-forward so I doubt you have to worry. If there is no visa situation usually a registered marriage anywhere will suffice. You might want to check with your country authorities as to any special attestation that may be required just to cover all bases. I doubt there would be any concern at all..

Nick-H

You don't have to register a marriage in India to be legally married. It is not actually a requirement! Many people here will regard the religious ceremony as being the real wedding. I've known Indian-Origin people in UK who regarded registration as a sort of engagement, and did not consider themselves married until the religious ceremony.

If I recall correctly (you can find the entire wording of the Act on the internet with a quick google) one of you must be resident in the area of jurisdiction of the register office. That wasn't a problem for me; my wife had lived in the same place for several years, but we did have some difficulty finding out which register office we had to go to.

The thirty-day thing is the same as in Europe: Your names are posted on the board, and it gives the opportunity to the public to raise any objection.

Under what religion will your ceremony be?

Do take a moment to review the Indian marriage acts: your rights are different according to which act you marry under --- at least in India!

I'mn sure it would, most countries recognise each other's marriages.

however, if I did ever want to take my Indian-citizen wife to live in UK, I'd much rather be applying with a UK Marriage registration certificate than with the scrap of hand-typed green paper we got here. Even Indian authorities have looked at it with suspicion; but, at the time, the registrar told us, sorry, we don't do many Special Act marriages, and don't have a printed certificate for it.

It's not a problem, so long as we continue to live in India, which we intend to do for the forseeable future, but I strongly advise an international couple, especially if they intend to settle outside India, not to do Indian registration.

As you are having a ceremony, the nature of the registration in India is less of a concern: bit like registering a birth. it's the birth that matters, the registration is just a bit of business to be done!

Please note that you may be required to show that you are free to marry. A certificate that you are not married, an notarised declaration to that effect if your country (like UK) has no such certificate, or divorce papers if appropriate. It's a possible stumbling point!