Getting Married Abroad (Spain)

amaru · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:20

Hi Guys after a little bit of infomation

Me and the girlfriend have decided to get married next year and are looking at Mallorca as we really love the place. We have been in touch with a wedding planner who advised due to spanish law we have to have a registry office ceremony here before we can have the real one over there. As you can imagine the GF is not keen on getting "married" twice but has agreed that if the ceremony over here is very simple it would be ok. My questions are:-

How simple can a registry office do be? can we just walk in sign a few papers and leave married or do we have to do the whole, vows rings etc. Basically i need to know what the minimum we can do so it does not feel like we have done it twice.

Cheers for your help

amaru · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:31

So all i will need to do is turn up with witnesses and sign papers is this right?

amaru · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:39

scorza said:
Basically yeah - think there's some sort of ceremony but my Sis wants it as simple as possible as well.

Cheers mate for the info. I will contact them to double check.

amaru · 5 Jul 2007 at 13:58

Bill101 said:
I wonder if it's to do with France and Spain being Catholic countries as even when you get married in a Catholic church here you still have to go an sign a registry book to make it legal in the eyes of the British (C.of E) government

After checking it seems this could be the reason

eg

If you are roman catholic not a problem, fill the paper work out job done
if you are not (Civil wedding) you have to be a resident for 2 years in spain but even then you still need to register with your local town hall in spain before you get married. :eek:

. So the only way to make it legal is to have a simple do in a registry office in the uk and have the real thing in spain. all fun i guess.