Moving and marrying in Australia....getting prepared

I've just received my prospective marriage visa (FYI.for anyone researching how long this can take -0 it only took me about 1.5 months from submission - from Canada) and am moving to Australia in the new year.and of course I am seeking help from those of you who have been down this road already!

We are getting married in the new year and I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with handling their name change for Canadian records. For example, changing my name on my Canadian Passport and on my RRSPs (locked in). I assume I can apply for the name change for my passport in Australia?

When you first moved, did you take out travel insurance to cover you for the short period that you weren't on the Australian Health Plan?

Any other helpful info would be much appreciated!

I didn't get here the same way you will but I did make the move over last year.

You can get a new passport while you are in Australia, you just have to apply for a new one. They don't just take your passport and change it, you have to apply from scratch and show your marriage certificate along with all the usual stuff.

Here's the forms you need to print off:
http://www.ppt.gc.ca/cdn/form.aspx?lang ... ernational

You can find the closest passport office in Oz here:
http://www.voyage.gc.ca/main/foreign/fo ... ent-en.asp

There are places in Oz where you can get your Canadian passport photos. I did find a list somewhere but I have no idea where that is now. If you can tell me where you are headed I could have a look and see where the closest one is.

I had to get a new one for my daughter because it was due to expire. I sent it off to Sydney (closet to Brisbane) and had it back a month later. So very quick, and they had no problems with the pictures either. So getting the passport is pretty easy. You'll probably have to go to a Justice of the Peace to sign your photos and verify who you are. They usually have a couple times a week where they do it for free at a local mall, not like in Canada where you have to pay.

As far as the banks go you should be able to just fax a copy of your new passport so that they will be able to update their files. If you're planning on staying in Australia for a while and becoming a non resident of Canada make sure you tell them that as well for tax purposes.

You should also get your SIN card changed as well, because you'll need to file taxes the first year after you leave. It looks like you can do it by mail if needed.

http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/en/sin/apply/how.shtml

For insurance we just took out regular travel insurance and made sure we were covered until a couple of days after we arrived. That way we had time to go into the Medicare office and get it all sorted. So it was pretty cheap to just get it for a week. We just went through the same people we had our car and house insurance with (ING) and it was very cheap.

Good luck with the move, and the marriage!

yeah, immigrating to australia is very easy, the country is encouraging lotsa immigration to meet the needs