@admogaine Haha your post made me laugh! Here's a few answers for you, and later tonight, I'm going to post info about our "interview" we had on Monday considering my being a non-EU citizen.

1.) Our first notification to marry meeting is in November and we plan to marry in August. I assume we won’t be issued an MRF straight away, if so there would be no point in having the meeting as this MRF would expire within the 6 months. So will they issue it to us at a later date closer to our marriage date or should I postpone this meeting? - This is tricky. I don't actually know the concrete answer to this. Here's my situation: We have the "notice" in person on July 4. We had this "interview" on Monday that made sure we were "legitimate" on Sept 12. We have to wait two weeks to get "approved," and then we pick a date. She just said if we did get approved, we could be married at the EARLIEST on October 4, 3 months after our notice date. She did not mention what the latest-possible date would be. We were planning on December 29 or 30 which is dangerously close to Jan 4, our "deadline," which I assume. But considering we don't have final "approval" yet on our "interview" that we had this week, we weren't able to even discuss a date yet because of that. If that makes sense.
2.) Must she be living in Ireland for the three months prior to the wedding, is that an obligation? - Negative! I'm not living there now and won't until after the deed is done.
3.) If so, will she somehow be able to work while she is here during those three months? I’m able to support her if she doesn’t work but she would go mad not working. She needs it for her sanity and I’d hate to think she’d be better off in the States with work until closer to our wedding date. - This is what I'm doing - staying in America working until the wedding in Ireland, returning to America, then quitting and relocating to Ireland permanently shortly after. She won't be able to work until you get married and subsequently when she is registered with the Immigration Garda and receives a Stamp 4 in her passport which enables her to work. If you have any other questions, PM me, as I'm in the thick of this right now. And keep an eye out for an updated post on this process later today!

Kelsey

Hey Kelsey,
thanks for answering those questions. So just so I'm clear, the gov't can dictate when you can be married??? What! What if you were already married?

I hope your interview went well 🙂
Liam

On Monday, we went to our I'm-not-an-EU-citizen interview at the Births/Deaths/Marriages registration office, same office as for our Marriage Notification meeting.

We were greeted and informed we would be interviewed separately. We were also told "Getting married in Ireland solely for the purpose of immigration has been illegal for one year, and illegal for many years in America." We said, okay! Haha. Then I was brought in first to be interviewed.

Here are the questions that I was asked (that I can remember, anyway. I was SOOOOO nervous. I am going to refer to my SO as "John"):

- How long have you known John?
- When did you meet?
- Where did you meet? (they asked me to be specific, as in the name of the pub. ha!!!)
- How many times have you been to Ireland, including your first visit?
- Why were you in Ireland on your first visit?
- How many trips has he taken to America to see you?
- What do you do for work?
- How long have you been employed there?
- What does John do for work?
- How long has he been employed there?
- Where did you go to college/uni?
- What is the name of the college/uni?
- What is your degree in?
- Where did he go to college/uni?
- What is the name of the college/uni?
- What is his degree in?
- Have you met his family?
- How many brothers/sisters does he have?
- Where do they live?
- Has he met your family?
- How many brothers/sisters do you have?
- Where do they live?
- What is your intention if you come to Ireland as a resident?
- In what field will you work in?
- When do you intend to move here on a permanent basis?
- When did you first discuss that you would like to apply to be married?
- Have you ever given a notification to be married before or have you been married before?
- To your knowledge, has John ever given a notification to be married before or have you been married before?

Then she took my passport and photocopied all of the pages that had immigration stamps from entering Ireland. She made a comment "how do you feel about moving to this lovely weather?" and also "you've been here a lot in the past year. Expensive." to which I stupidly replied "yeah it is, I got one of those airline reward credit cards." Stupid answer.

After that she again informed me that marrying for the purpose of immigration is illegal; being able to immigrate to Ireland is a benefit, but cannot be thee sole reason for the marriage. Then I signed off the paper with my answers and I was finished.

We went back into the hall and it was John's turn to go. He answered the same questions I did. Our answers were side by side on the paper. She also photocopied his passport indicating his trips to America.

When he was done she came out and told us it would be two weeks until they heard back - at that point, once we're good to go, we can pick a date for the marriage ceremony. I'll update when I hear back in a few weeks! 🙂

Kelsey

@moveclubadmin Hey Liam! In a sense.... yes. Anyone, regardless of EU or not, has to give a "Marriage Notification." You're issued a Marriage Registration Form (MRF) and it must be used within 6 months, but not before three months. That's what enables you to get married. This is how it works for CIVIL ceremonies; other types probably differ, but I only read the civil ceremony rules for a non-EU citizen and Irish national combination. I have extra steps being non-EU. The timelines make it difficult to achieve, haha.

Hi guys!

We got approved! We passed the 'test!' Haha. We received approval through the post that we can proceed to get married. Yay!

For clarification purposes... we were issued a Marriage Registration Form and we can use it at any point in the future. There's no expiration date. If we wanted to get married next year, next month.... doesn't matter. We're pretty much good to go at this point!

I'll keep updates coming, but this will probably be the last one for a while until we nail down a date for the ceremony.

If anyone has questions, please definitely let me know! Happy to help!!

Kelsey

Congrats Kelsey and hubby-to-be 🙂 One step closer. Good luck wedding planning now.

Hey Kelsey, I thought about what you said a little more, and wanted to follow up to be sure of something....
Where did you originally hear that the MRF is good for 6 months? Do you think that it is possible that is still the case? Providing accurate documentation or info isn't the strong point of many Irish gov't agencies, so I'm just hoping you're not assuming it's validity is indefinite just because there's no expiration date on whatever you received.

@moveclubadmin Hey Liam!

I don't remember where I read this about the six-month expiration - there are a lot of government sites out there with old information. We called up the Registrar to ask about the form expiring and they said there was no expiration!

I tried to look just now where I got that information from and cannot find it.

Hi Kelsey,

This information has been a godsend for me! It is amazing how no information about this second interview appears on any websites I look up.

From my understanding, we get immediate approval after this second interview. However, your process seems to indicate you had to wait weeks for approval?

Can you please clarify for me how long it took for them to approve your marriage and how the approval it arrived?

Thanks so much for your help, we are getting married in July this year and we arrive only 2 weeks before the wedding. I was only advised about this second interview when we applied for the marriage registration so I am now worried it won't be approved in time.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Melissa

@melissa-hunt - Hi Melissa! I'm glad the information has been helpful :).

After the second interview occurs, they send your paperwork to get checked over and approved. This is why we waited two weeks to hear from them and receive their letter of approval from the HSE in the post.

That's the Irish for you.... they tend to be very relaxed about these things and sometimes timelines get tight.

Are you both non-EU citizens? What kind of ceremony are you applying for?

Edit: I just wanted to add, the reason it takes time is because they are comparing your interview questions to ensure the marriage is legitimate. I think they also run checks on each persons passport.

Kelsey