Hey guys. I would like to get some advice about a couple of things. Half about visa, half about marriage. I'm South African and I have been living and working in China for the past 5 years. My Thai fiance and I are planning on getting married so I applied for an affirmation of freedom to marry from my embassy in Bangkok. My embassy in Shanghai said I had to do it there. So I applied for it and waited 4 months for this document to come from South Africa. Now it arrived and I had to take it to the consulate office here in Bangkok to get authenticated. I just got back from their offices and they told me that I now have to send this back to the Thai embassy in South Africa so that they can stamp it and then I need to bring it back. This seems like a horrific pointless back and forth and I am not sure why all of this is required. So I would like to know if this is really how it is supposed to go or is someone making a ton of work for me unnecessarily.
The second part, if by some miracle we manage to get married, I need to apply for my Non-O visa. For that, I need proof of income. Would it be OK if I just show them bank statements to show I get this kind of income every month?
One would think that 2 people who would like to get married would be a fairly simple procedure, but good Lord this just feels like getting sent from one place to the other with no one actually being able to give clear steps from start to finish.