Getting Married In Hungary

woodso wrote:

Hi I'm the new boy here. I have decided to try and start organising the documents that I will need from the UK end, then start on the Hungarian documents needed.

I'm English and my Fiancee is Hungarian. We're hopefully going to be getting married next year in Hungary.

....

I could not get a straight answer from the British Embassy in Hungary.

Welcome to the mysterious world of marrying someone from a different country.

To be honest, I'd get married in the UK, it's a lot less hassle. Mrs Fluffy and I did the deed in the registry office there, simply because of the impending arrival of our daughter (who would not have been British if we weren't married) and the residence requirement for the UK is really short (longer in HU). There's another thread in this forum about getting married which has a lot of these discussions.

There's a bunch of different conventions on mutual recognition of documents. To cut it all short, all documents issued in the UK are recognised in Hungary (EU requirement) with the caveat that they are accompanied by official translation for use in Hungary. That goes for birth certificates, marriage certificates and all that. To get it translated, you have to take it to the official translation place and it costs money. You get a bit of paper back with stamps and seals on it. Looks nice but rubbish really. All of these official translations should be accepted by the Hungarian establishment.

You don't need the British Embassy for this stuff as they are useless (even more useless now they don't issue passports - what exactly do they do there?).

Your Hungarian girlfriend should ask the Hungarian Registry Office what's needed as it's them you need to satisfy, not the UK authorities.

BTW, watch out for the British Embassy and their registration of kids (if you have some). The charges are ridiculous and completely unjustified. We skipped the consular birth certificates with kid No. 2 because HU birth certificates are in English and French as well as Hungarian. There's no need to provide a translation as UK authorities accept the multiple language HU birth certificates.

And of course, if you are officially married in the UK, you are married in Hungary too. You don't need to get married twice, once in each place. However, if you get married in a church in Hungary, you're not married without the civil ceremony. Not the same as in the UK, where the priest/rabbi/iman etc acts as the official registrar.