Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the concept of "village weddings" or sometimes called ceremonial weddings here in Thailand. What are we talking about?

Well, what we are not talking about is a registered marriage, let's be clear. Thailand operates on a Civil Law marriage registration system. That means if two people want to get married they can just go down to a local Khet, or Amphur office, that is the Civil Registrar Office, basically pay the fee, wait in line and sign their names to a document that says "hey we are married" and then voila; this usually happens in a morning or afternoon, you are married; now you are married. So that is how legal marriage works. Unlike the Common Law system merely holding yourself out as married does not reach the threshold. Again Civil Law, a different way of dealing with these legal principles. You have to go through the registration process to be considered married. 

So getting back to "village weddings". Village weddings, it is basically the ceremony. The families all show up and most of the time all of the families, once the ceremony is over and done they consider you married. As far as they are concerned, you are married. Everything else is just basically formalities that you deal with. There is a certain way of looking at that, but legally understand in Thailand that is not a valid marriage; it is not a legal marriage. It creates no legal marital estate; it creates no legal relationship between those two parties. So understand you can have those kind of ceremonies. We see it a lot in the context of K-1 Fiancé Visas. Folks will have a “village wedding” here in Thailand and still be able to go ahead and obtain a Fiancé Visa because they are not legally married. Then they go, oftentimes they usually go to the US and get married in a courthouse or something but they are not legally married for purposes of Thailand. 

So something to bear in mind moving forward. Folks that are looking to get married understand there is a difference between just having a ceremony and going down to the Government Office and registering the marriage.