Getting Married in Finland

OliBlom · Post by **OliBlom** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:35 pm

Has anyone had any experience of getting married in Finland, Helsinki in particular. I am an EU national (UK Citizen) working here, however my fiancee is not (Croatian citizen without Finnish Residence permit as yet), so any experiences relating to what official documentation and procedures that we need to complete would be greatly appreciated.
Is there a "Government" website that relates to this subject that anyone is aware of?

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karo · Post by **karo** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:45 pm

I didn't get married in Finland myself, but I know that the process is pretty easy, especially with "siviilivihkiminen" at "maistraatti." And yes, there is a government website about this in English:
http://www.maistraatti.fi/en/index.html

OliBlom · Post by **OliBlom** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:29 pm

That's great! Many thanks!

mayumispa · Post by **mayumispa** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:20 pm

thanks for the link...very informative and useful

ScubaGirl · Post by **ScubaGirl** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:35 am

I'm american and I married a finnish guy (we're separated now though).

Anyway, I had to go back to the states & get a certificate stating that I was not currently married & then bring it back here and show it to the maistratti (sp?). After that it was a piece of cake. Don't know if the same rules apply for Croatians. Good luck & congrats to you!

rachelelizabeth · Post by **rachelelizabeth** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:57 pm

Hi,

I just got marruied in Finland in June... It wasn't easy to get the info though. I am a UK citizen and my now husband is Finnish. I couldn't find one website with the info so I had to ring round various embassies and the maistraatti etc- it was a nightmare! Anyways, I needed to get a certificate of no impediment from the UK- my local registery office. Then I had to send this and my birth certificate to the foreign office in London to be legalised- there is a charge for this. Then the Finnish authorities did another search on me to see if I was married (after filling in a few forms for them at the Church office) and then one on my husband. After that I had to send in my documents as above that were legalised to the authorities! Phew! Then it was straight forwrd, meet the priest etc and then get hitched!

Rachel

luoto · Post by **luoto** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 7:29 pm

Rachel.. Sounds like you got the run around. UKEmbassy Helsinki can get the necessary certification (at least for civil services and I believe the rules are the same for church IF YOUR church in Finland is not being in flexible).

http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/servle ... 6180909958 has been on their site for a long, long, time..

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 8:35 pm

- Evidence that you have resided in Finland for at least 21 clear days

So that means you have to wait until the rains end

rachelelizabeth · Post by **rachelelizabeth** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:23 pm

Yeah I contacted the Bri Emb in Helsinki and they were as much use as a chocolate tea pot and told me to speak to officials in the UK who then told me to contact Finland! It just seems that the most helpful people were the Church office and nobody else seemed to know. Well doesn't matter now as I am married and successfully managed to navigate this minefield!

As a side note, you guys who post on here... what do you all do as jobs and what can a brit moving over with basic language skills expect to gain as employment?

Post by **neil** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:07 pm

rachelelizabeth wrote:Yeah I contacted the Bri Emb in Helsinki and they were as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

It is unfortunate, but I believe they are trained to be this way. I think they get their customer service training from Finland . Same goes for Finnish embassy staff

luoto · Post by **luoto** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:44 pm

Now I must say that the British Embassy was very helpful when I needed to make some contact with them. No problems at all with that regard.

Quality of some advice from their consular section (local staff) was not great (Finnish mentality, answered the question but didn't address the broader question) but both in person and by email I had no problems there .)

soledad · Post by **soledad** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:56 am

We are planning to get married.

So problems.

Got divorce papers for the part of us that is from TX, USA. Got passport, and got whatever.
Then got the Finnish part living elsewhere in EU. Looks like she needs to ask for paperwork in maistraatti, and we would rather know what exactly they want or need to see for his documentation. "Send with the needed documentation." errr? Not clear. And we asked this from maistraatti (Joensuu) last week - they have still not answered.

So woudl anyone have ANY clue what is the "needed documentation" for US citizen in such a case? Fill out that piece of Finnish paperwork, and send the paper given by TX court, with state stamp on it? Then wait until they accept it or decide they want more different paperwork?

I think living in one other EU country, and wanting to get married in another makes it worse as well. So we are not living in Denmark, but would prefer to get the final wedding ceremony there.

Frustrating really to wait for answers to simple questions from them... what documentation do they exactly want???? Only to then ask a Danish friend at work to call Danish authorities to ask after that what they want.

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:04 am

Arg...

Danes are not exactly known as the "liberals" when dealing with them "funny foreigners"...

So I'd get your papers and get married in Finland and then get yourself "nordic-registered" in DK...

Anyhow then again a marriage in Finland... ehh..

tu qieres toma una cerveza?

soledad · Post by **soledad** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:12 am

Well, we asked the maistraatti also what we would need paperwork wise for the option of getting married in Finland ... since the flights should be reasonable priced in January and February. Well - same result. Does not matter if "abroad" or in Fin, they still haven't answered in days.

cerveza... ahora? tengo que trabajar ...

Mölkky-Fan · Post by **Mölkky-Fan** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:27 am

I got married in Finland 12 years ago. It was quite simple, I'm Brit and her indoors is a Finn.

Cannot remember much except that I had to post my upcoming marriage at my local registry office in UK (and I got a Certificate of No Impediment) and I needed a letter from a RE school teacher (who I had not even seen for some 10 years) that I was a practising Christian for the church service (which was not really true). Everything else was surprisingly easy.

I found that the difficulties came after the marriage!

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