To ensure COVID-19 pandemic does not hinder prospective brides and grooms from being together amid the social gathering restrictions, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched an online marriage service to allow couples tie the knot.
The new service comes after authorities in the country issued a stay-at-home order to curb the spread of the virus.
The UAE’s Ministry of Justice on Sunday said the “service in particular aims to preserve the public’s health and safety.”
The Justice Ministry, which is responsible for registering marriages in the mainly Muslim country, has set up a website for engaged couples to submit documents needed to record their weddings.
The new service also requires the prospective husband and wife to choose a cleric from an officially approved list of marriage registrars.
Once the couple’s paperwork has been approved, a date is set for a virtual ceremony via videoconferencing, during which the cleric will ask for the couple’s digital signatures before a marriage contract is issued, the report said.
Afterwards, the cleric will email the contract to a religious court to review before copies of the approved contract are sent to the couple’s mobile phones.
The digital wedding service aims to protect public health and facilitate access to legal procedures “under the current circumstances by depending on the smart justice system,” the official UAE news agency WAM said.
