Marriage; some have dreamed about it since childhood, while others have no particular interest in it. Personally, I lean more towards the first category, so when my boyfriend proposed to be last year, I said a wholehearted yes! What I didn't know then was that by saying yes to my true love, I was also saying yes to application forms, emails to institutions I had never heard of and countless phone calls to Dutch, French, and Portuguese authorities. Fortunately, everything eventually fell into place, and on July 27th, o noivo and I exchanged our vows!



Having spent almost a year gathering all the necessary documents, I can now consider myself an expert in this area. Therefore, I'd love to share my experience with you in this article, so that the preparations for your wedding in Portugal, as a non-Portuguese, will be much easier!

STAP 1: Collecting the documents
The last mile is the longest does not apply in this case. In fact, this first step took us months, while the other steps fortunately went more smoothly. Here is a clear overview of the documents you'll need if you're planning to get married in Portugal as a non-Portuguese:

The affidavit of eligibility to marry (certificado de capacidade matrimonial) the affidavit of eligibility to marry is a document stating that you are not currently married and that, according to the law of your country or origin, you and your partner are allowed to marry each other. As my partner and I are a French-Dutch couple, so we had to request this from both France and the Netherlands, which turned out to be quite a process. In case you have a Dutch or French partner, you can read below what you will need!

The Netherlands
 In the Netherlands, you can apply for the certificate of marital eligibility at the municipality where you last lived. For this, you will need to submit the following documents by post (note: municipalities may require additional documents):
 
 

You can request the certificate of marital status from Portugal at the Dutch Embassy in Portugal. For this, you will need to submit the following documents:

1. Copy of ID/passport
2. Address and proof of residence registration (rental contract andstatement from the Portuguese tax authority)
3. Declaration of single status (The RNI-extract International Civil Status and Nationality, which can be requested through https://www.denhaag.nl/en/certificates-and-declarations/personal-records-database-non-residents-rni-in-the-netherlands.htm)
   

France 
To request the certificate of marital eligibility (certificat de capacite a mariage) from France, you need to fill out the application form (which can be sent by the French embassy) and include the following documents:

• Birth certificate of the partner with French nationality (not older than 3 months)
• My own birth certificate (multilingual and not older than 6 months)
• Copy of my ID card/passport
  
  
  

Make sure the documents are provided in the correct language. Fortunately, there are agreements within the EU for issuing multilingual extracts and translation forms. In most cases, you can request a document in multiple languages. We only had to translate the Certificate of Marital Status from France since it's not a standard document for application. We had it translated by www.urgent-vertalen.nl as it needed to be done by a sworn translator.

Have you succeeded in applying for all the documents? Great! You're one step closer. Read this article to find out what the next steps are.