V4 Experiences with names
|
 |
 |
 |
Experiences with names
Like most, if not all, celebrants I have many stories to tell that range from humorous little incidents through to a groom calling the bride by someone else’s first name and a runaway bride.
Today I’m going to talk about some experiences I’ve had with receiving some Notices of Intended Marriage and some things to be wary about.
When you’re receiving a Notice of Intended Marriage it always pays to double check parent’s names, particularly the mother’s maiden name. It also pays to compare a birth certificate with the Notice very carefully.
I had an incident late last year where the couple came to the first interview without any documents whatsoever. They were very forthcoming with information required, so I had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information they gave me.
A few days later the bride to be brought their original birth certificates to me, at which time I noted the groom’s father was shown to be a different person to the one he had indicated to be his father. Upon enquiry it turned out the groom’s father had died when he was nine months old and his mother had remarried. The second husband adopted the child and a new birth certificate issued showing the adoptive father as the father.
|
|
| Only recently I had another incident where the groom had put only one name for his mother on the Notice. When I asked him whether that was the mother’s given or family name he informed me she wasn’t his mother. He then gave me the name of his biological mother followed by, “that’s not what I have told Immigration”. In this instance I was relying on an overseas passport to establish the identity of the groom.
These stories highlight several things, not least of which is areas where the Marriage Act 1961 does not have sufficiently stringent requirements for us to prove the identity of a person and their ancestry. This applies most particularly to people who were born outside of Australia and still have a current overseas passport.
Ted Cameron
Gold Coast Qld
www.abeautifulceremony.com.au
|
| Our thanks to Ted for sharing his experiences with us |
|
|
|
