Such a useful website, and our visit to your splendid gallery of useful information while on holiday last April made us sure we wanted to get married in Cape Town! I'm British and a UK citizen. My fiancée was born in Cape Town but moved to the UK when she was 10 years old. She has dual nationality but doesn't have a SA passport (she has a UK passport). Can she marry on her British passport?
To marry on a South African passport, she will first have to apply for a temporary/permanent SA passport. Our Marriage Officer has informed us that he needs her green ID book, but the problem is that she doesn’t have one, because of the age she was when she left the country. She has a ‘book of life’, but I don't believe this is the same thing. So even if we are able to obtain an SA passport, it seems we're stuck! We are having such problems, as you can see! As South Africa is in the Commonwealth, surely she can marry on her UK passport?
And now imagine this: the wedding is set, everything is booked and paid for, and we fly over for the wedding in two weeks! Because of this, we have had to book an appointment at a registry office in the UK before we fly over, just in case! (In which case we'll have a blessing in Cape Town instead.) Pam, any advice you can provide in this matter would be most helpful!
A very stressed fiancé
I have spoken to a legal advisor and a local Marriage Officer and they both assure me that there is no legal reason why you cannot have your wedding in Cape Town as planned. The main purpose of producing a passport or ID is to prove identity, and all your fiancée needs in order to marry in this country is her British passport. The Marriage Officer will ask her to complete a simple affidavit called a B1-31, as she does not have an SA identity document. Every Marriage Officer is a Commissioner of Oaths and is competent to complete this affidavit with her.I suggest that you contact your Marriage Officer in Cape Town and inform him or her of this fact.
Good luck!
