Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

When we think of mar­riage, we may think about love, com­pan­ion­ship and ro­mance but let's not for­get that mar­riage is al­so a le­gal con­tract that binds two peo­ple to­geth­er!Like all con­tracts, there is an "of­fer" (typ­i­cal­ly made by the groom-to-be) and an "ac­cep­tance" (typ­i­cal­ly from the bride-to-be) and as such, there are le­gal as­pects that go in­to the mix.The eas­i­est part is mak­ing the "of­fer" and get­ting it "ac­cept­ed" but af­ter that, many cou­ples who vis­it www.trinidad­wed­dings.com, tell me that they aren't sure how to de­ci­pher the rest of the "le­gal stuff."

First­ly, re­gard­less of re­li­gion, all cou­ples in­tend­ing to mar­ry, must "post banns." This is a safe­guard mea­sure to find out whether ei­ther par­ty may still be mar­ried to an­oth­er per­son. In times past no­tice of banns ap­peared in the news­pa­per.Banns can al­so be post­ed (and some­times read out aloud) in your place of wor­ship. To "post banns," both bride and groom�to-be, need to ap­ply with valid iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards or pass­ports at their re­spec­tive, clos­est Dis­trict War­den's of­fice or at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's De­part­ment.

Both par­ties should ap­ply on the same day or at least dur­ing the same week. The cost for this is $10 and banns will be post­ed for sev­en days. Peo­ple who have been pre­vi­ous­ly mar­ried need to pro­vide a copy of the De­cree Ab­solute to the War­den's of­fice per­son­nel.When you post banns, en­sure that you both have cor­rect in­for­ma­tion about each oth­er on the Reg­is­trar of Mar­riages' cer­tifi­cate. For ex­am­ple: en­sure that mid­dle names are not omit­ted and that full and cor­rect ad­dress­es and oc­cu­pa­tion ti­tles are giv­en.

Er­rors will de­lay your process and you will have to re-fill the forms. A good idea is cor­re­spond via cell phone when go­ing to "post banns," so you can ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion with your fi­anc�(e) be­fore writ­ing on the forms.On the eight day, you will need to pay an­oth­er $10 to "take down the banns." At this point, you will be giv­en a mar­riage li­cence. This li­cence is valid for six months, so be sure you wed dur­ing that time, oth­er­wise you will have to re­new your li­cence at the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al's Of­fice in Port-of-Spain, for a fee of $100.

Af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny (and once the wit­ness­es have signed the pa­pers), your of­fi­ciant (pun­dit, priest, rev­erend, imam, pas­tor, etc) will send your mar­riage pa­pers to the Reg­is­tra­tion House of the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs. Af­ter your wed­ding (usu­al­ly with­in five-sev­en days), you will need to go there to col­lect your mar­riage cer­tifi­cate and pay $25.Just for safe-keep­ing, you should make copies of this doc­u­ment as soon as you re­ceive it. Re­mem­ber that you'll need to walk with the orig­i­nal mar­riage cer­tifi­cate if you would like to change your name on your bank ac­count, pass­port, dri­ver's per­mit or for in­sur­ance pur­pos­es.