Moving to Germany with Non-EU Spouse

[awalkinthestreet]

I'm a British citizen currently living and working in South Korea, where I met my partner. She is South Korean. We are planning to get married and move to Germany by exercising my treaty rights.

We are planning to travel for around a year before moving to Germany and hoped to travel to the UK prior to Germany in order to get married. Is it possible to apply for her to apply for a marriage visa from outside of South Korea? Also, from looking at the requirements it states that we must prove where we will live together after the marriage. We would be moving to Germany, but won't have an address or anything at that point. Is this possible for us to just prove flight tickets to Germany for after the wedding?

The other option is for us to get married whilst travelling in Thailand or India. Would this marriage certificate be accepted by Germany in order for me to exercise treaty rights?

The final option is to return to South Korea in order to marry prior to moving to Germany.

[ALKB]

I'm a British citizen currently living and working in South Korea, where I met my partner. She is South Korean. We are planning to get married and move to Germany by exercising my treaty rights.

We are planning to travel for around a year before moving to Germany and hoped to travel to the UK prior to Germany in order to get married. Is it possible to apply for her to apply for a marriage visa from outside of South Korea? Also, from looking at the requirements it states that we must prove where we will live together after the marriage. We would be moving to Germany, but won't have an address or anything at that point. Is this possible for us to just prove flight tickets to Germany for after the wedding?

The other option is for us to get married whilst travelling in Thailand or India. Would this marriage certificate be accepted by Germany in order for me to exercise treaty rights?

The final option is to return to South Korea in order to marry prior to moving to Germany.

- Visas can only be applied from a country of which the applicant holds citizenship or has a valid residence permit (not a tourist visa).

- Also check the requirements regarding a UK marriage. Rules regarding marrying non-EEA nationals have tightened up recently.

- Germany recognises a marriage if the marriage is legally regognised in the country where it took place unless there are other legal concerns such as underage marriage or polygamy. BUT any documents not in German will have to be officially translated and a marriage certificate from India or Thailand will most probably also have to undergo a lengthy (and possibly costly) verification of authenticity.

- Why not marry in South Korea before travelling? You could then also get any required legalisations/ Apostille/etc. done where at least one of you is familiar with the system and speaks the local language.

- Denmark could be an easy alternative.

[syomfa]

ALKB,

Is there a good reason why you consider Denmark to be a good alternative? Do there embassies respect the EU directive especially well or another reason?

[ALKB]

ALKB,

Is there a good reason why you consider Denmark to be a good alternative? Do there embassies respect the EU directive especially well or another reason?

Denmark is just about the easiest place in Europe to get married to a non-EEA national (if neither partner is Danish).

I got married there because marrying in Germany would have involved a huge stack of papers, a fee of around 1000 € for having the papers checked for authenticity by the German Embassy in my husband's home country and a probable wait for that to conclude of 6 months or more.

Getting married in Denmark took us about 4 weeks from start to finish and the fee was less than 100 €. We had to travel and pay for accommodation and such but that was still much cheaper and more pleasant than just paying the German document verification fee. plus: built-in honeymoon

Also, the marriage certificate comes in a handy multi-lingual international version that I haven't had to have translated once so far.

http://www.toender.dk/Borger/In-English/Marriage.aspx

[liksah]

- Visas can only be applied from a country of which the applicant holds citizenship or has a valid residence permit (not a tourist visa).

This is only accurate if you're not already married.

EEA family permits can be applied for anywhere, regardless of residence/citizenship status. Schengen visas although ideally should be applied for in the country of citizenship or residence can be applied for from anywhere if you are married to an EU national.

However, none of this matters as South Korean citizens do not need visas to enter the UK or the Schengen zone. I don't know what you need to get married in the UK but a marriage visa is probably not necessary in this type of situation.

Once married, you both can go to Germany (she won't need a visa) and then register for residence over there.

[ALKB]

- Visas can only be applied from a country of which the applicant holds citizenship or has a valid residence permit (not a tourist visa).

This is only accurate if you're not already married.

EEA family permits can be applied for anywhere, regardless of residence/citizenship status. Schengen visas although ideally should be applied for in the country of citizenship or residence can be applied for from anywhere if you are married to an EU national.

However, none of this matters as South Korean citizens do not need visas to enter the UK or the Schengen zone. I don't know what you need to get married in the UK but a marriage visa is probably not necessary in this type of situation.

Once married, you both can go to Germany (she won't need a visa) and then register for residence over there.

I was referring to the UK marriage visitor visa the OP was asking about. Getting married on a visitor visa/visa waiver would be violating the terms of her stay.

This is why I suggested either getting married before travelling or in Denmark where it's easy and a Schengen visa or visa waiver would be fine for getting married.

[liksah]

Oh ok, that makes sense. I would honestly +1 your earlier suggestion about getting married in South Korea though. It would make things a lot less complicated. I wasn't aware that getting married in the UK on a visa waiver broke some rules.