A large island. Based on your logic, one could call her the Queen of Somerset.
Can somebody explain to me why a heterosexual couple would get a civil union. It just seems that if it’s as hard to dissolve as a marriage and has all of the perks of a marriage then why not just get married?
This couple did it because it doesn’t come with the religious baggage of marriage. Incidentally, it doesn’t have all the perks of marriage, at least in New Zealand; only married couples can adopt a child jointly.
The OP is in England. England is a country (although not a sovereign state) with a monarch. That monarch is QEII. I’m all for pedantry but… will you buy “Somerset’s Queen” rather than “Queen of Somerset”? 
That’s an interesting question – the hetero-couple that I know who got one did so because they felt that marriage had “trad” baggage that they wanted to avoid… (which I suppose is a flip-around of the people who fight to keep marriage “traditional”).
I think if it had been around 10 years earlier I would have been keener to get a CU than married (though I guess the in-laws wouldn’t have been all that happy).
Thanks so much to everyone for your replies, some of the asides had me in stiches!! Yes, complicated and clear as mud after reading through the different ideas above:) I’ve contacted the GRO in Ireland - they have said that there is no way we could get married in Ireland - the NZ Civil Union is recognised there. We looked into getting a dissolution of our Civil Union, but it is the same as applying for a divorce, you have to live apart for at least 2 years before applying - not exactly what we’re looking for! Yes, we have thought about just going ahead and getting married in Ireland and stating we are not married/in a civil union and hoping for the best - but neither of us are keen on committing fraud and/or getting found out. Perhaps having a ceremony that ‘looks’ to the outside world like marriage would be the only way to go…Regarding why we didn’t just get married in the first place, time was of the essence, we only had 3 weeks until we were leaving NZ and there were other factors at play that forced our hand so to speak.
I guess we might have to just speak to a Lawyer as suggested and see if there are any other options available.
Thanks again - what a great community of people!
Ang
Angjax, one of the options provided was having a religious wedding, but explaining to the officiant that you actually already have the civil paperwork and your family doesn’t know about it nor should they, all you’re interested in is the religious/have something involving the whole family part. I’d do the explaining ASAP, not spring it on them on the actual wedding day. Of course, that assumes neither of you is alergic to incense smoke.
I’d check with the GRO whether religious officiants are required to perform the civil paperwork as well or only permitted to; if they’re not required, it’s a valid option.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you commit legal fraud, just that you focus on the ceremonial/family/celebratory/religious aspects (choose all that apply) and…refrain from mentioning the date on your civil union documents to your family who might care. Don’t apply for a marriage license or sign anything that says you’re getting married in 2011 and there’s no legal fraud.
Believe me, a *lot *of people do this. I’ve officiated at several weddings that were not legal marriages because the paperwork was long done and the bride and groom already man and wife. I’ve also officiated at several weddings that were not legal marriages because the couples could not or chose not to do the legal paperwork and were not legally married after the ceremony, but felt socially/spiritually bonded anyhow.
From an officiant’s point of view, there are two distinct things happening at a legal wedding: there’s the ceremony in front of everyone, and then there’s the paperwork signing afterward, which is generally not witnessed by the group, but just the officiant, bride and groom (and, in some places, a witness or two, often the best man and maid of honor). This part is often done in a scramble between the end of the ceremony and the photography, with the photographer yelling for the bride from the front of the church and the officiant going, “hang on a sec!” from a table in the back of the room while someone finds a pen. The rest of the congregation won’t miss it, trust me.
The only real trouble I’ve found is that some people are nervous, feeling like they’re “lying” to their family. To which my general counsel is: most people are married before they get married. In our culture, there comes a point at which you just *know *that this person is your spouse, and it’s hardly ever at the altar. There’s a moment when you’re snuggling together, or watching a movie, or a health crisis hits and you drop everything to rush to his side, or you realize that if he didn’t call within an hour of returning home from a business trip, you’d be really worried and upset. That’s when you’re *really *married, in my book. Your mother might not know yet, the state might not know yet, but *you *know and your partner knows in that private moment. The public moment is merely when you decide to tell everyone else, and we’ve invented these rituals to cement our new roles in everyone else’s subconscious, and the paperwork to tell the state what we already know. I’ve officiated at a dozen weddings, legal and not, but I’ve never married any couple - they were already married, I just get to tell everyone!
I’m having a hard time seeing why this law exists.
If Ireland doesn’t recognize a New Zealander civil union, then it should regard the two of you as unmarried, in which case there shouldn’t be any bar on getting married. If Ireland recognizes your civil union as valid but distinct from a marriage, why would it object to you also getting married? And even if Ireland recognizes a civil union as the equivalent of a marriage, why would it object to you getting what is essentially an extra marriage? If you had gotten married in New Zealand, would Ireland still prohibit the two of you from having a wedding in Ireland?
The only reasonable objection I could see would be Ireland prohibiting somebody from getting married if one of the people was in a civil union with somebody else.
I don’t know of any government that will allow you to have an “extra marriage,” even if it’s with the same person. Generally speaking, if you have a valid marriage in another country or have a marriage equivalence (and possibly even a marriage equivalence that isn’t recognized in the second country), you aren’t eligible for marriage. (Obviously things would be different in a country that allows polygamy.)
I strongly agree. It appears (from the responses in this thread) that as far as England is concerned, you’re married, so legally, the best solution is to do absolutely nothing.
If you have a church or priest already in mind, call them ASAP, and explain the situation (requesting them explicitly to keep the situation confidential; a Catholic priest should understand the concept). Ask them if they will perform the ceremony without filing the civil paperwork. If they say yes, your problem is now solved, and you can concentrate on important things, like the color of the tablecloth at the bridesmaids table at the reception. If the priest turns out to be some horrible reactionary anti-civil union type, then find another priest.
Worked for several members of my family (though in the U.S. where the Catholic Church isn’t quite so accustomed to being a monopoly as they are in Ireland.)
How about the country we’re living in? It’s quite common for married couples to have a second wedding ceremony.
Ceremony, yes. Extra set of paperwork saying you’re married, no. It’s unclear from your post which you meant. If a married couple comes to me and says they want not just the ceremony, but to apply for another marriage license and fill it out and have me sign it and send it in to the state, I don’t think I can do that. And I think that’s essentially what we’re talking about if this civil unioned couple applies for a marriage license in Ireland.
That’s not the same as two marriages.
What you need to understand is that, in Ireland, the legally significant event is not the paperwork; it’s the marriage ceremony. If you marry someone and fail to register the marriage by filling out the appropriate state paperwork and sending it off to the right people (in fact it’s the celebrant who normally does this) you are still legally married. (Proving it can be a problem, of course.) You (and the celebrant) are exposed to the penalties associated with failing to register a marriage (which are hefty). But failing to register the marriage does not make you unmarried any more than failing to register a birth will make you unborn, or failing to register a death will make you a zombie.
So celebrating a church wedding in Ireland and not filing any paperwork is not an option here, unless you have a very, very co-operative celebrant. Officially, none of the mainstream churches will countenance this.
What the Catholic church (and I imagine at least some other churches) will do is “convalidate” or bless a legal-but-not-sacramental marriage. This is normally done in a very low-key way, but it can be associated with a celebration in a church that looks startlingly like a marriage ceremony.
This would be a no-brainer if you had been civilly married in New Zealand - a church convalidation with all the bells and whistles would be the way to go. However you are not legally married; you are in a legally recognised civil union. And I suspect the Irish church has yet to grapple with the question of whether a legally valid civil union can be convalidated as a sacramental marriage when it isn’t, strictly speaking, a marriage at all. I’m afraid you could be the test case.
Which means that it may take you a little time to get an answer to the question of whether you can have a church convalidation. Which means, the sooner you approach a clergyman and ask, the better.
The other point to note here is that, if this can be done, and if you do it, at the end of the day, legally, you’ll still be in a civil union, not a marriage. If you want to be legally married then your only options are (a) terminate your civil union and marry, which is not practicable, or (b) go back to New Zealand and convert your civil union to a marriage, which is expensive and inconvenient. (You could do this before a church convalidation, if you wished, or even after, if you can get a convalidation of a civil union.) Ireland and the UK will both legally recognise an NZ marriage contracted in this way.
Perhaps (B) can be done at the NZ Embassy: Spanish Embassies include Notarios, Civil Registry and Property Registry among other legal services. Sometimes they’re also available in Consulates.
Nope, or at least not in a way that would help here. In common law countries, the validity of a marriage celebrated in another country depends on the law of the place of celebration. So, if you get married in the UK, the Irish courts will regard your marriage as valid if it was valid under the applicable UK law.
The NZ High Commission in London is in the UK, not in New Zealand. Like any embassy, it enjoys some privileges and immunities, but it is not NZ territory, and NZ law does not apply there to the exclusion of UK law. So if two people get married in the NZ embassy in London, the question third countries will ask is not “was this marriage valid in NZ law?” but “was this marriage valid in English law”?
Which is why embassies do not normally provide the service of celebrating marriages. (Providing home country registration of marriages celebrated in the host country, yes. But not celebration of marriage itself.)
Thanks once again to everyone, I’m going to try a few of the suggestions made above and will let you know how we get on!
On another tangent - divorce has been legal in Ireland since … 1997!!!