If one of you is Vietnamese, you can register a marriage here and it is well-trodden. If neither of you is, almost every couple we work with signs the paperwork at home and celebrates in Vietnam. That celebration is a real wedding in every way that matters, and it is what we photograph.
We are photographers, not lawyers. Treat this page as a starting point and confirm your own situation with your embassy or the local People's Committee.
The honest answer about legal marriage
Vietnamese marriage registration is designed around a Vietnamese citizen, or a foreigner who lives here. For two visiting foreigners the picture is murkier: some sources say it is possible, others say it is not practical, and local offices vary. We have never had a couple arrive on a two week trip and leave with a Vietnamese marriage certificate.
That is far less of a problem than it sounds, because the legal act and the wedding are two different things, and only one of them is in the pictures.
If one of you is Vietnamese
This is the common case, and it works. What is generally required:
- Registration at the People's Committee of the district where the Vietnamese partner lives.
- A passport for the foreign partner.
- A certificate of no impediment to marriage from a competent authority at home, confirming you are free to marry. Where no validity period is stated, these are generally treated as valid for six months.
- Evidence that you meet the marriage conditions of your own country, if you do not live permanently in Vietnam.
- Minimum ages of 20 for men and 18 for women.
Allow time for translation and legalisation of your home documents. Couples who leave this to the last fortnight are the ones who end up rushing.
The symbolic ceremony, and why most couples choose it
A symbolic ceremony is a wedding without the registry. You exchange vows, your families are there, someone you love reads something, and at the end you are married in every sense except the filing cabinet. The signature happens at home, often in a ten minute appointment weeks earlier.
Couples choose it because it removes every constraint. You can hold it on a beach at six in the morning, in a courtyard house in the old quarter, on a boat in Halong Bay, or in a garden in Da Lat. No office hours, no district boundaries, no document that has to be in the right language.
A realistic timeline
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| 6 to 3 months out | Pick the region and the week. Hold the venue. Tell us your dates. |
| 3 months out | Legal paperwork at home if you are registering there. Flights booked. |
| 8 to 4 weeks out | We plan the route and the hours, and hold them with a USD 100 deposit. |
| 1 week out | Fitting, hair and make-up trial if you want one, final timeline in writing. |
| The day before | Send us the gown. Our team presses it properly, so you are not ironing in a hotel room. |
| After | Wedding day photographs in one week, with a five to ten minute film. Pre-wedding: a preview in days, the retouched set within three weeks. |
What a day here actually looks like
A Vietnamese wedding day starts earlier than you expect, often before six in the morning, because the auspicious hour is set by the families. There is a ceremony at the bride's home with both families and an ancestral altar, then a procession to the groom's home, then the party in the evening.
If you are marrying into a Vietnamese family, you will be part of all three and it is the best thing in the whole day. If you are two foreigners celebrating here, you can borrow as much or as little of that shape as you like. We will tell you honestly which parts travel well and which only make sense when the family is yours.
