How to Get Married in Hong Kong for Filipinos

Last 2016 - 27th of December to be exact - almost two years' worth of hard work had finally paid off. TB (the boyfriend) and I finally got hitched. The entire process came with a steep learning curve since we hadn't any precedents to use for comparison. It was basically a hit-or-miss thing every step of the way...which is why I'm writing this post. Hopefully, you guys get to avoid all my mistakes and have an easier time planning your own destination wedding. :) 

Getting married in hong kong

Start Planning and Organizing Early

• The earlier you start, the cheaper air fare and hotel bookings you can score
• Early planning may also score you sale / discounted rates on reception venues
• Finding a Catholic church in HK with an accommodating or helpful priest can take time. Most of the popular churches are also usually fully booked at least a year in advance (e.g. Rosary Church in TST, St. Joseph’s Church in Central, Pok Fu Lam Church)
• Shit happens. So the earlier you start planning, the more time you’ll have to work out contingencies.

Church Wedding Legalities

We strongly encourage you to get civilly married here in PH (the earlier, the better) before you start organizing your church wedding in HK. It just makes everything easier based on our experience.

Two local / PH-based priests officiated our wedding in HK, and yes, that means we paid for their hotel and airfare (and gladly so since they’re family friends of ours). It may mean additional expenses, but it also meant lesser headache for us because our local priests went out of their way to help us with all of the church documents we had to file in order to get the HK diocese to approve our request. 

Basically, the HK diocese asked our local priest to perform or conduct the following:

• Fill-out prenuptial inquiry form (basically the wedding questionnaire)
• Provide certified documented proof of marriage banns
• Our local priest also provided (on our behalf) the HK diocese with copies of the following:
• NSO-certified birth certificates
• Photocopies of our passports
• Baptismal certificates
• Holy Communion certificates
• Confirmation certificates
• Full names and birth dates of your two witnesses (one for bride and one for groom) and include clear scanned images of their passports.

There could be more, but long story short our local priest did everything that should be done prior to the wedding, and they just needed to submit certified documented proof of it. Here’s a step-by-step procedure of what we did.

1. Start looking for a church in HK as early as June 2015.
2. Finalize choice of church and request for list of requirements from HK priest (September or October 2015).
3. Get civilly married January 2016.
4. Start gathering and processing necessary documents mid-year (June 2016).
5. Pay fee for use of church in HK.

You can submit requirements as early as October to HK diocese. Make sure to do so with courier services like LBC or FEDEX so you don’t have to worry about your documents getting lost. Neither our local nor HK priest provided me with an address for the diocese in HK so I needed to research about this on my own. In the end, I used the HK Catholic directory to figure out whom I should send the documents to. In the end, I decided to address my package to Rev. Lawrence Lee (Chancellor) and used this particular address: Hong Kong Diocesan Curia – Diocesan Chancery, Catholic Diocese Centre, 12/F, 16 Caine Road, Hong Kong, 999077

Inside, I included a letter addressed to Rev. Lawrence Lee explaining about my situation and made sure that I mentioned the HK priest whom I was communicating with the entire time.

It took only a few days for my package to reach the diocese and for the HK priest’s office to contact me about it. From here, everything was easy since I only needed to confirm a couple of things with the HK office and then that’s it. Everything was done by email.

Wedding Suppliers

A couple of things you should know when booking wedding suppliers for your overseas wedding:

Most HK-based suppliers prefer that you pay in cash or have the amount deposited to their bank account.

With BDO, even having a bank account with them or actual cash in PHP won’t allow you to deposit to a HK bank account right away. You’ll need to buy either HKD or USD from them first, and you can only do so IF they have enough dollar reserves for the amount you need. I think the same goes for other banks.

To avoid payment hassles, make sure that you have enough HKD or USD when making a deposit or paying in person. Have your PHP exchanged in advance.

Most HK-based suppliers require down payments.

Some HK-based suppliers accept PayPal but you'll have to shoulder the service fee for every transaction. Be aware, however, that PayPal can choose to block new accounts if their first transaction involves a significant amount of money. If you're planning to use PayPal, it's best to open an account beforehand and make use of it a few times or so prior to the wedding. This way, you don't risk getting flagged come crunch time.

Supplier List:

• Photographer and videographer - Hong Kong based. 
• Makeup and hair stylist - Hong Kong based.
• Flowers for church and entourage - Hong Kong based.
• Choir (pianist and singer) - Brought our own.
• Cake supplier - Hong Kong based.
• Souvenirs - Brought our own.
• Transportation - Hong Kong based.
• Coordinator - Everyone in the family. :D

Wedding Photos!

Here are a couple of shots (raw photos provided by our photographer) of the big day, which turned out to be a whole-day affair: 10 AM wedding, lunch reception, dinner reception, and then an evening cruise to cap the night off. 

So there you go! Hope this post offered some help. :)