Just thought I would post as I have just had a fairly stressful morning trying to arrange a Schengen Visa for France for my wife, we got one 2 years ago when she was studying here in London and although we had to provide a lot of paper work we got one for the exact time we were going to be away for (6 days) now that we are married I knew that we did not have to pay and thought it would be a fairly straightforward.

With 3 weeks to go I rang the French embassy (£1 per min) to arrange an appointment so we could go and get a same day visa and was eventually told that the earliest appointment was in 6 weeks time so now we will have to go through an agency at a cost of £80 not a problem my fault for leaving late, I asked what forms I needed and was told that this time all I needed to send was both our passports and our marriage certificate which must be stamped and legalised at the Thai Embassy in the UK

I was not sure why this had to be but thought ok and rang the Thai Embassy in London and was told that before they could stamp it the Documents must be prior certified by the Legalization Division, Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (FCO) at Norfolk House, 437 Silbury Boulevard, Milton
Keyness, MK9 2AH, tel. 037 00 00 22 44 or +44 20 7008 5959

I went on the FCO website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/what-we-do/services-we-deliver/legal-services/legalisation/) and went through the online payment (£28 per page plus £6 postage) this was going to take 3 days but before they could do this as it is a foreign document it needs a solicitor to certify it which cost £20 at our local solicitors which we did, when we receive it back we have to take to the Thai embassy again pay £10 per page and wait 2/3 days. All of this was news to me and although we will have just about enough time to sort all this out the so called "Free Visa" has cost me over £100!

The whole sending my marriage certificate off to be legalised seems so strange as my wife has a 2 year visa in her passport so it was good enough for the UK, just wondered if anyone knows if there are any other documents or things that I should be doing now which will save me this stress in the future.

Hope this might help some of you who are thinking of going abroad soon or in the future and if anyone else knows any more would love to hear from you.

After all this I just hope the Bloody Weather is HOT!!!

How completely ridiculous. If the translated Thai marriage certificate has already been seen/stamped/signed by the British Embassy in Bangkok and the Thai MFA then I fail to see why it would need to be 'legalised' by the FCO and the Thai Embassy in London merely to satisfy French Embassy bureaucratic requirements.

The wife never had any problems with our Thai marriage certificate and she obtained 3 French and two Belgian Schengen visas.

Edited August 17, 201015 yr by paully