Getting married at the Standesamt

I've never been to an "Amtliches" wedding here in Germany, so I have no idea what the usual procedure is. I'm not asking about the paperwork you have to do before, rather what happens on the day. How long does it take? What do they actually do? Do you have to bring witnesses to sign or are those optional? Is it pretty much just paperwork being signed and that's it, or is there a bit of ceremony to the whole thing? I know there's an option of music, but when do they play it and is it worth having or doing?

Anyone who has done it themselves here, I'd like to read about your experience.

I did it 10 years ago in rege3nsburg.

You wait your turn, you can bring witnesses but they're no longer required (or maybe they are again). You can have a few guests but space is limited. Filming is allowed for most of it but there's a point where it's a "legal proceeding" and you have to turn the camera off -- pretty silly, I think. Afterwards, you can all drink champagne in the hall if you or soeone else brought bottles and glasses.

Nothing terribly special, not much more drama than US civil ceremonies.

woof.

I was recently a witness at a friend of mines wedding in the Standesamt in München, filming is allowed, photo's are allowed, witnesses was a must !

But other than that, BadDoggie is right, you wait you turn in a comfortable waiting area with all your guests, drinking a little champagne in the process, then they call you, and it's just like a civil ceremony, then after you are married, you exit into a sort of exit waiting area, to continue the celebrations, before moving on.

Are these waiting rooms nice? How long are you allowed to celebrate in these rooms before they kick you out for the next group? Or are all the wedding parties in there together? How many do they take? We are looking at getting married at the Mandlstr location, so details about there would be useful.

The one in Munich at the back of KVR held between 25 and 30 people. How long I do not know. We were in there about 15 minutes before disappearing off to celebrate somewhere else.

The waiting room at the KVR is OK, nothing too special. There is a coatrack for guests and some couches to sit on. There's a kind of nice view out the waiting room and ceremony room windows. If other people are getting married around the same time, you'll share the waiting room. I think there is a terrace area you can use too, but since we got married in the winter, I'm not sure what it's like.
When you get there, someone takes your name and asks if you want to have music at the ceremony. For something like 12 Euro, some lady will play a few songs on the organ during the ceremony, which lasts about 10 minutes, tops. We had her play a little Dean Martin, and other cheesy stuff, but you can choose from a limited list. I think they also do Hell's Bells by AC/DC if you're into that.
A guy in a black robe reads your name, educational level, and other info that's important to the Germans out loud, says some legal stuff and then you sign papers. You don't have to have a witness there. Then viola! You're married!
Not sure how Mandlstr. looks, we got married at Ruppertstr.
They didn't kick anyone out of the waiting room, it was kind of like a slightly upscaled version of all other KVR waiting rooms, without the number-pulling. We probably could have stayed there all day if we wanted. I'd suggest heading out with your wedding guests to a nice restaurant or somewhere else to celebrate later.

Won't the various standesämter let you go have a look before you make your appointment there? One man's meat is another man's poison -- maybe one is 80's turquoise and pink and some will love it, some will hate it. Preview the places yourselves, they know by now that it's a business and that they make money off it, so they should be customer-service oriented. Relatively.

Actually, I think you can't just choose freely which one you want to go to -- one of the Ämter is responsible depending on where you're angemeldet, and that's where you'll get married. Correct me if I'm wrong here. And I think they're only open during business hours, i.e. no Saturday weddings.

Gen; you haven't forgotten we're in Germany, right?

From what I know, you can get married in any registry office in Germany. Just more paperwork if you do it in one you aren't living in. As for customer-service orientation, why should they be? It's not like there's anywhere else you can go and get married officially in Germany.

But looking around the office beforehand is a good idea. We tried to swing by on Thursday, but they didn't answer the door/weren't open. Probably making an appointment would work.

Also, you can get married on a Saturday, but they only do one or two Saturdays a month, so they are very busy. It also costs an additional €55 to get hitched on a Saturday.

From what I'm reading here, I'm guessing it's around 15 minutes for the whole shebang?

customer-service oriented: remember I said relatively.

Why should they be customer-service oriented? Because the wedding party takes everyone out to lunch at a restaurant nearby, bringing restaurant (and often hotel!) business to the neighborhood, that's why. And if you really can choose freely what Standesamt you want to go to, which does appear to be the case, then each Amt competes with every other Amt. I do not claim that every Standesamt realizes this. The city of Füssen, however, does:

http://www.stadt-fuessen.de/204.0.html

and they say just what Showem says, that you can fill out some forms and marry there even if you don't live there. They have some Saturday appointments too.

Yeah the Standesamtliche Hochzeiten I've been too have been around 20 minutes in the room. Each Beamte has their own speech though, and if you do some funky name changing they have to read all that out to the guests. Laws were just changed so that the man can take the woman's name or add it to his own or something.

Do you have to exchange rings at the Standesamt? Just wondering because my bf and I will be doing the Standesamt thing in a few weeks but are planning and ceremony for later and would like to wait to do the ring thing for the larger ceremony with both of our families, friends, etc.

No, you don't need to exchange rings at the standesamt.

You need neither rings nor witnesses to get hitched at the Standesamt.

@erdbeere

Congratulations!

Do you have a list of papers what you need in order to be married in Standesamt? Would really appreciate if you sent it to me by PM.

Thanks.

Hi, got married 2 years ago. Did not need witnes but was allowed to name some. No need to change ring but was allowed to add some ceremony stuff as I wished. Could choose were to go in all of Germany but had to get an appointment there and then ask "my" place in Munich to send the paperworks there. But actually I found the people in the KVR very helpful. They explained everything even before I really came there to make an appointment. Try and ask them.

Natalia, the list of papers depends on where you and the person you want to marry are from. You have to go down there yourself and find out.

But if you do choose to have witnesses, then they have to speak (or at least understand) German, right?

Correct.

Ok Thanks everyone!! We just want the standesamt thing to be as simple as possible so we can save all the 'good stuff' for the big ceremony we are planning for next yr...and since my family wouldn't be able to make it on such short notice (it all came up kinda fast) we won't be having any guests at the standesamt...

Not really how we imagined doing things considerring my bf hasn't really even asked me to marry him yet lol..but some things have come up (ie. job offer and lack of work permit)... guess lifes weird like that.

Anyway, thanks again for the info!

ah, so you're not pregnant then.

where did you end up getting a job?

Heh nope not pregnant...

Its not even a job, just an internship...at Sony Ericsson. Thing is that I have been out of Uni for a yr now and haven't had any luck whatsoever finding a job or even an internship... so I really do NOT want to have to pass up this opportunity just because of a little formality (lack of work permit). And if I just applied for a work permit it would take 4-6 weeks just to find out if I am approved...and since we've been talking about getting married, we just figured we might aswell do it now. I just hope it doesn't take to long though because they origionally wanted me to start July 1st, but I don't think it will happent hat fast, so she said July 15th would be ok but I don't think they'd want to wait for me much longer. So yep, thats the story

So I have read that for a US citizen to marry a German or whatever, they need to get a copy of their birth certificate, no lolder than 6 months and get an apostille for that. The thing is...the guy in the Standesamt here in Unterhaching didn't say anything about that to us. He said that my original birth certificate is fine, and didn't even mention an apostille... so is there any chance that I might not actually need this? Or will we find out later that we actually do need this and therefore hafta wait an extra few weeks to get this stuff done?

I don't think so.
We researched this thing quite a bit and the Standesamt in Munich (where we had to hand in all the paperwork) gave us this list of to do's (which are everywhere in Germany) like this.
So maybe your guy just isn't used to all that.
The Apostille is something that the peeps at the court in Munich (yes - they double check all the paperwork as well) wants it (reason: documents and stuff look different all around the planet - the Apostille is the proof that it is correct).
What you might be able to negotiate on is, whether to have a certified translator AT the ceremony or not.
Our Standesbeamtin swore in a friend (not certified translator) of ours - with the cool effect we have a friend being our official Standesbeamtin as well (with her signing all the papers) - next to saving some money.

Ok well my bf ..er uhmm fiance... just called the Standesamt here and the guy said he has some letter from the Landesgericht saying that Americans don't need an Apostille and an older birth certificate is ok...and that he just had another American a few weeks ago and it was all fine. So... maybe if anyone is in a hurry to get married u should come out to Unterhaching

Darn!
Should have known that before our wedding - would have saved some trouble and $$. But he still wants it all certified translated?!

well he said I probably don't need my birth certificate translated because it doesn't say much...but I figured I might aswell get it done anyway.

When I was married a couple of years ago my german was not brilliant. In theory I would of needed a translator to be there but we skipped it as in our eyes a church wedding was the actual wedding for us and I knew enough to nod my head and say Ja in the appropriate places.

We had problems with paperwork as the law had recently changed. The british consulate in Düsseldorf were very helpful, including sending faxes explaining that the law had changed (ref zzzz) and we did not need document xxxx. This saved us quite a bit of money and cut through a lot of red tape. It very much seems that the amount of paperwork required sometimes depends on who you are talking to and which side of the bed they got out of that morning.

The whole 10-20 minute ceremony is in my "male" opinion nothing special and would feel let down if that was all we did. It seems very much a wedding "factory line". After we all went to a resturant. A year later we had the church wedding which was a lot simpler in terms of paperwork (wife belongs to the church). It was also a lot more atmospheric and never seemed to be rushed.

Disadvantage as a bloke... Have to remember two wedding aniversaries.

Flippin' 'eck.

Yea, thats why we are aiming to do the ceremony exactly a year after we get married at the standesamt.

Please can you help? I want to marry in or near fuessen need help on how to book from england and ideas of affordable accommodation? Many thanks Kirstie

Heiraten in Füssen ...