I live in VA, but want to get married in Canada... What do I do??

Question

My fiance and I plan on getting our marriage license this October 24th. We live in Northern Virginia, but want to get married in Canada. What's the process of doing this? We just want a simple wedding where we can just go to city hall to get the license and have a marriage celebrant marry us on a beach, or something, but somewhere in Canada.

What do I need to do? How far ahead do I need to start planning/preparing??

Answer 1

Marriages in Canada are administered under provincial legislation. Your requirements will vary depending on which province you will marry in. In general, you simply need to appear at a registry office or municipal office with the correct paperwork, apply for a marriage license, and take it to the marriage commissioner with whom you have arranged to have the marriage performed.

Marriage law in Canada *is* fairly consistent from province to province (all being rooted in British Common Law) with the exception Quebec where the law is based on Code Napoleon. It is much more complex to marry in Quebec -- you must have a negotiated marriage contract and register your marriage civilly prior to the actual ceremony, and the bride's name may not be changed to adopt the groom's surname.

For your purposes I would choose either Ontario or BC. Ontario has all the lovely lakes around cottage country, and if you choose to get married in the fall you get the incredible colours of the hardwood forest for your backdrop -- or you can opt for Niagara Falls which is a very popular wedding destination. Or you can blend the cosmopolitan atmosphere of big-city Toronto with an urban beach environment right on the shore of Lake Ontario.

BC has the ocean beaches with the temperate coastal forests for your backdrop. If you love wildfowl and golf, the Reifel wildfowl sanctuary is bracketted by two golf courses and the natural seawall will take you right up to what is possible the Greater Vancouver Regional District's most attractive white-sand beach, Boundary Bay park. If you love nature I would look up-island to northern Vancouver Island or the Queen Charlottes, and get married against the backdrop of ancient cedars and fir. Just be aware that the coastal forests are RAIN forest -- Boundary Bay gives you a reasonable chance of sunshine in July or August, but a better-than-even chance of rain any other time of year. The north coast gives you a better-than-even chance of rain all the time. In the interior is some stunning desert landscape, if that is to your taste. And I would be remiss not to point out that, just across the east border of B.C. into Alberta is the world-heritage site beauty of Banff, in the stunning rocky mountains -- relatively few beaches, but scenery that is unequalled in the world.

Although residents of Ontario can bypass the cost of a marriage license by having banns published, that option won't be available to you, so you'll need a license whichever location you choose.

In BC you must both be 19 years old or older, and one of you must apply in person for the marriage license, bringing with you the following information for both of you: Full name, birth date and birth place, marital status, current address. The license fee is $100, with an additional $75-plus-GST fee for the civil marriage itself. Licenses are issued by registry offices across the province. The marriage commissioner may charge extra to travel to your location, or you can be married in his or her office. After marriage the husband is entitled to use his wife's name, or the wife is entitled to use her husband's name, but the legal name of record remains unchanged (this is the norm in Canada).

In Ontario you must both be 18 or more. The license fee varies from municipality to municipality, and the license is issued by the municipal office of the municipality in which the wedding will take place. I have seen fees varying from $100 to $125. Some municipalities offer the wedding itself as a municipal service, others require you to arrange separately with a civil marriage commissioner (see the website linked below to find out which municipalities offer town-hall weddings, and who the commissioners are in other municipalities) The marriage commissioners then set their own fees for the service itself. After marriage either of you may use the other's surname, or you may submit a change-of-name form to legally change one spouse's name to the name of the other. Your own government would determine, however, what recognition they would give to a legal name-change of that sort.

In all cases if you have been previously married, you will need a copy of your decree of divorce, or of your previous spouse's death certificate.