Getting married in Poland

I recently got engaged (yeah, fair dues and more power to me and my successful attempts to overcome all them lack of commitment elements to my DNA) and am now planning the process of getting married to a Polish citizen in Warsaw. From what I've google-di-googled there seem to be a good few Irish who have spread their tentacles into Polish marital relations. I guess the majority live in Ireland - at least my cousin and his Polish wife do. Any others brain dead enough to get in contact with me are invited to do so. Maybe you can give me some tips to running rings around bureaucrats!

I read on Polandian's review of Polish news that Rzeczpospolita newspaper recently had an article about the 9,000 marriages that occur between Poles and foreigners annually. Uh, that article most have really peeved them nice White Power/ Pole Power folks. I see they are having a White Pride Fest soon. Lots of semi-ripped posters advertising the event around Kabaty metro station. Is there a market ofr such tripe in Kabaty? Or are they just trying to recrui Tesco shoppers? Should be fun, the white pride fest. A few hundred men with homophobic, xenophobic skinned heads and no t-shirts, dancing and mauling each other. Hmmm, interesting stuff.

Back to that marriage stuff in the Polish newspaper. It claims that 25% of the marriages are scams. Some business-minded local gals can supposedly earn up to 15,000-20,000 (€4000-€5000) złoty for a few hours at the registry office just to help an African or Pakistani (yes, they are both countries) get their foot in the door of the EU. Clever operatives. Reeks of prejudiced press to me. Ok, so presuming you are actually in love with somebody who is Polish the below may apply to you.

I went to the Irish embassy today on ul. Mysia to inquire about the 'Certificate of No Impediment' or 'Cerificat de Coutume' (as it is strangely titled on the form) which you need to have to prove you haven't been married before. I received 3 pages of forms to fill out but they are all pretty straight forward. What is your fiancee's name was the most challenging one. I've gotta return them whenever I can with my passport and long version of birth certificate. The cost - €20 or 90 zł. I'll pay the €20 as it means saving about €2 or 8 zł as the exchange rate is around €1=4.1 złoty. Bullshit that you have to pay, but anyhow. Nuthin is for nuthin when it comes to greedy Ireland.

What I found surprising on the form was that they expect me to already give the name and address of the cleric/civil administrator who will be conducting the ceremony. Of course, we've yet to sort this out cause from what I understood they won't even hear you out unless you can show them the Cert. that you haven't got a harem of wives hidden away in your forest działka (country cottage). Anyhow, when I go there I will let all who stray here know the ins and outs. I suspect there will be quite a few.