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Published: September 11th 2008
The Ceremony
After these questions, you are legally married.The first two weeks in Istanbul were solely dedicated to completing the reams of paperwork necessary to get married in Turkey - at least three business days required for you to physically go to widely geographically dispersed areas of the city. On Sunday afternoon August 10, I arrived in Istanbul. On Monday August 11, the adventure of Turkey's own form of Marriage Preparation began. The first step to get the process going was picking up the Affidavit of Marriageability from the American Consulate in Instanbul. The document basically stated that I had never been married before, nor was I widowed or divorced within the last 300 days - my guess about the 300 days is paternity of any potential conceptions. The American Consulate is located in Bebek, Istanbul, which is about 1 hours drive without traffic from our home in Tuzla. Our arrival at the embassy was during the mid-day break around noon, the office was not open for American citizen consular services until 1:30. Luckily, as an American citizen, I can walk in without an appointment. The process was easy enough, fill out the form with my name, place of birth, parents names, passport number, pay $30, swear before the
The Marriage Official Officiates
Here, the Marriage Official from the government fills in some paperwork before the ceremony. Vice Consulate General that all the information was truthful. She stamped the form with the Consulate seal and signed the document. The process lasted less than 30 minutes. The first step completed.
On Tuesday, Cenker's parents and I went to the Governor's legal office to have the Affidavit of Marriageability signed, sealed, dated and documented. The Governor's office is located close to Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia) and Sutanahmet Square. Cenker before going to work dropped us off at Taksim Square, from where we walked for about an hour to the Governor's office. It was hot. We got to the building, went through security and found the room where we had to go. A woman looked at the affidavit and my passport, stamped the document on both sides, signed it and then passed us along to the next station, where a different woman recorded all the information in a "large book". Later I would realize that a "large book" records all the information, no computerized databases to be seen. Again, this process was quick, only 15 minutes, but getting there and finding the room in the maze of staircases and hallways was the hard part. You must realize, these were hottest
days of the summer in Istanbul, each day was in the 90s at least. I was relieved that the process at the Governor's office was so fast, now we could return home and I could recover from the journey. Little did I know that Cenker's parents were intending to do some shopping in the Grand Bazaar. One of the drawbacks of not knowing the language is that often, I have no idea what is on the agenda and what i should be anticipating for the day. I was hot ,sweaty and tired, and then i had to go shopping for some underwear. Also, Cenker's mom bought henna for the Henna Night before the wedding. I think Cenker's parents perceived my state of exhaustion and over-heatedness and we started for the ferry ride home, luckily the return trip did not require as much walking in the hot sun. So, the process continues....
Wednesday evening, Cenker and I attempted to get my passport translated into Turkish. We drove to the shopping/downtown area of Tuzla to find the translation office, which we did not find on the first attempt. Continuing down the road, we visited the spot where our wedding would take
place at the restaurant - Sampiyon Kofte! Kofte is a delicious flat meatball - so the restaurant might be translated into English as Champion Meatball! (Cool- right?!?) The manager gave us a sample of the appetizer which would be served at our wedding. Returning home, we found the translation place, but it was closed, we would need to return the next day.
On Thursday morning,we went back to the translation place. The woman photocopied my passport and pulled up a form document of the American passport and filled in my information and then printed two copies for which she wanted 75 YTL - approx $60. Cenker talked her down to 50 YTL. OK, i thought we were done with the translation - oh no... A notary stamp and signature was required. Luckily, the notary public was only a five minute drive away - 20 minutes and 30 YTL later, the notarized translation of my passport was completed! We thought we were in good shape to go to the Marriage Bureau in Cenker's area of Istanbul in Tuzla. Oh no, the fun and flurry of paperwork had only just begun! The lady at the Marriage Bureau gave us a little
Saying Goodbye to Ozgur
Ozgur studying at Stevens Institute of Tech joined the wedding festivities. piece of paper, 1x2.5inches - if only the documents required were as small as that little piece of paper. Good thing - Cenker was not going to the office. An ikametgah ilmuhaberi from the village elder (muhtar) needed to be printed out. To get this ikametgah ilmuhaberi, which as far as I could tell was a proof of Cenker residing in Tuzla, we went to this tiny building where a woman using a dot matrix printer and a mainframe system produced the required document; however, Cenker did not have a photo to attach. Our efforts were foiled - we would need to come back another day with a picture. Oh, turns out there was a laser printer and windows based computer in that office as well. Apparently, the database for the ikametgah was on the older mainframe system. Afterwards, Cenker and I went bed shopping.
After one week of the marriage document preparation process, it seemed like we still had so much paperwork left to do - the wedding was only one week away! Cenker stayed home from work for another day to complete everything! It was a Monday. First stop was the Health Bureau 9AM, where we picked
Farewells
Thanks for coming! up a Medical Examination Report, which didn't seem very official at all, since it was obvious that the document had been photocopied from an original many times and many years ago. Some of the lines on the paper were slanted and the lettering had blotches. For a document which would require us to spend one day's time to complete, it seemed a little informal. Anyways, 10AM, photo shop to get headshots - 12 pictures for each of us. 11AM - Pendik private hospital to commence the health tests - blood was drawn, chest xrays taken. Tests would be completed by 1:30PM. Killing some time while we waited, we walked and and tasted some wedding cake as Oszut - expensive, dessert place. Cake was so yummy, but was 6YTL per person! Too much money. Back to the hospital to get our test results, we find out that the little paper listing the required tests was different from the tests on the official paper! We needed to get one extra test done, our blood type. I could just tell them A positive, they needed physical proof. Luckily, it was only 15 minutes for them to complete the test since we had already
The Cake
Cenker and I pose before cutting the cake! given a vial of blood. Oh, before we could leave, guess what we had to do? Get another two stamps and signatures on the document before leaving the hospital. These copied crooked lines documents with our medical information seemed overflowing with information and signatures. Signed, stamped, and dated documents in hand, we leave the hospital to return to the Health Bureau 3PM. In the first room a woman reviewed the form, hand-wrote our information into a "large book," cut and stapled our photos onto the form. The second room contained the doctor, who needed to sign and stamp the paper. The waiting room was filled with anxious and frustrated people who must've been waiting all day. Luckily, Cenker pushed his way to the door and as soon as it opened he rushed in to the doctor, a young attractive woman with blond hair, she must've been in her early 30s. She quickly glanced at the document and asked Cenker in Turkish, "where did you find an American to marry?" "In America," Cenker replied. Cenker explained that the doctor has seen a lot of other nationalities here in Tuzla,since Tuzla is home to large ship building/repair industry and the workers come
The Cake - Take 2
a different angle! from all over the world, but not usually America. Anyways, we were in and out of the second room under 5 minutes. Oh, the people waiting outside the doctor's room, nearly rebelled against us, since they had been waiting for so long. The third spot in the building was a little kiosk, where we needed to get another stamp. The guy behind the glass pulled out a long pair of scissors, which startled me a little. He proceeded to cut the documents in half. Yeah, it was what the form was intended to do. The Health Bureau retained a portion of the form and we had to bring the other portion to the Marriage Bureau. But after having spent the whole day trying to get all the information, stamps, signatures on that form, I was shocked to see the document just so nonchalantly cut! Ok, enough mourning of the parting of document. The necessary portion in hand, we went back to the Muhtar to get the form which we had no picture for originally 4PM. We got it - only 6 YTL. Off to the Marriage Bureau, finally!!! I read the little piece of paper - oops, we still need
The Cake
The first cut is the...highest?! a photocopy of Cenker's Turkish ID. We stop at the photocopy shop along the way. Cenker is back in the car. I read the little piece of paper again. Part of it, I could not understand, but i knew we were missing something else. and we were - a file folder. Cenker runs back inside the photocopy shop and purchases it. Now, we are definitely ready for the culmination of four days of paperwork! We get the Marriage Bureau 4:15PM, hand over our documents and photos. We just had to pay 320 YTL and we were done!
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Gala
non-member comment
such an experience! :) where else would you get that... Fun to read! thanks for sharing and congratulations once again! Beautiful, happy pictures