Solemnizing Marriage Philippines

  H OW TO GET A SOLEMNIZING OFFICER? Ahead of your wedding day, you should already have a solemnizing officer and matters should have been discussed with him already like the ritual, vow, entourage of people who will be attending, date and venue, etc. Why? Because S.O. should know all these things since he will play a very important role in your wedding. But how to get one? A solemnizing officer is a person that will officiate your wedding. He was given authority by his both by his church and the law to officiate a wedding hence he is given a  CRASM or Certificate of Registration of Authority to Solemnize Marriage issued by Philippine Statistics Authority or PSA . So commonly Solemnizing Officers are church ministers, priests, pastors or imams. So you can ask the assistance of your church office in securing a solemnizing officer. Based on your religious affiliation. If you are both Roman Catholic, then your SO should be a Roman Catholic priest. If one of you is Roman Catholic and the

Certificate for Registration of the Authority to Solemnize Marriage (CRASM) is being issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to the Solemnizing Officer. The said Certificate serves as their license to officiate weddings in the Philippines bound by Law- Family Code of the Philippines.  A solemnizing officer must not officiate any wedding if his CRASM has already expired, otherwise, the marriage maybe considered null and void unless otherwise declared by the Court as valid. But can you imagine all the hassles, time, and money being wasted? So might as well be sure first before the wedding.  It will be very important for any couple to ask, politely, of course, their officiant about his CRASM because he might have missed renewing it :) Why it is needed? If you will notice in your Marriage Contract the Certification number of SO's CRASM must appear and the Civil Registry where the wedding took place must have verified the Certification Number before forwarding the Marriage

Solemnizing officer is a minister who will officiate your wedding. I mentioned those solemnizing officers who are allowed by law in the home page of this website. Solemnizing Officer can be religious leader, incumbent mayor, judge and in some circumstances ship captain or airplane chief are also allowed. But I would like to focus on the solemnizing officer we commonly see in different wedding venues like hotel, restaurant, garden, island, beach and other outdoor venues. Who are they? Are they judge, mayor or religious leaders? Most of them if not all are religious leaders especially Christian pastors and ministers. We should remember that by law religious leaders are advised to administer weddings inside their church/s. However, in some occasion couples or marriage applicants may request especial request that their wedding will be held at their desired venue. I will take our wedding as an example. My wife and I decided that our wedding venue will at the function hall of the hotel. It w

The Family Code of the Philippines states that " the marrying parties should get the license from the city or municipality where either one of them habitually resides. Once the license is issued to you, you can marry anywhere in the Philippines within 120 days." The Family Code is clear on this. The marrying party should get their marriage licence from the city they reside or either one of them habitually resides. I will give you and example from my experience. We got our marriage licence in Bacoor City. Although my permanent address is in Samar and my wife's birth address is in Zamabonga Sibugay. Why did Bacoor City hall give us a license? Simply because we just got our new house and address in the said city. But with that, one of us must present a proof that we are really staying in Bacoor by showing a valid ID with address. Since we are new in Bacoor and we do not have any ID showing our address then they advised as to get a police certificate using our current address

It is not easy to plan for a marriage right? You need to do a lot of consultations. It is already given that before marriage we have to be prepared. That is why, we need months or even year/s of planning and it is not easy specially when we are working at the same time. The hardest part is the coordination, wherein we have to set appointments with the hotel or venue, church, transportation, flowers, food, etc. etc. . Hence, some couples choose to hire marriage planners or coordinators which is very helpful. Of course marriage coordinators will be an additional to our budget. For our part we did not hire coordinator instead we did all the plannings together. We did the plannings in less than a year and it was not easy for us because both of us were in Manila and our planned wedding was in Mindanao. But of course if there is a will there is a way. I would like to share with you, our list when we were planning for our wedding. How much budget we have; or at least how much we can have bef