Question: Can foreigners marry legally in Spain?

Answer: Non residents can only marry legally via the Catholic church. You must have been baptised and confirmed. And not previously married in the church, a registry office doesn´t count. Only one of you needs to be Catholic. We do Not organise church weddings, for this option we can put you in touch with a planner who does organise church weddings. Same sex couples can not marry in the Catholic church which is one of the many reasons why we don´t organise church weddings.

Blessing Ceremonies

Please note: We do not organise church weddings.

LEGALITIES and PAPERWORK for wedding ceremonies at the venues
You would marry legally in your home country so your marriage is also registered in your home country. This means the bride can assume her husband´s surname if she wants to (in Spain the wife DOES NOT assume her husband´s surname). This makes dealings in the future more straight-forward ie; registering births of children and in the unfortunate events of marriage break-down or death.

Ceremonies can be religious or, they can be non religious, and the content of the ceremony can be very similar to a wedding ceremony from back home, if this is what you prefer.

By making this decision to no longer work with church wedding ceremonies, we have improved our services and your overall wedding planning experience by:

– Being able to book and secure the date much more quickly. In previous years, the church make us wait quite a while before they confirm the date, leaving us all on tenter hooks until then. This way when you choose your wedding venue, we can book everything straight away and confirm the date as soon as you like, giving us more time to plan and your guests more time to book their flights and accommodation.

Celebrants

– Having a choice of celebrant to suit you to perform the blessing. Click here for more info on our celebrants. We are not “stuck” with the local parish priest and his rules. The church are changing the priests here a lot recently and each priest has a new set of rules, from music, to photography, to lighting candles, even to flowers….it’s difficult to keep up, so we are having to deal with constant changes. By booking your celebrant, we know who we have from the start and we deal with the same person the whole time.

– The celebrants we recommend to you, can tailor make the ceremony to suit you, with your own choices of music and readings and poems. As they are English, there is no language barrier, so it’s easier for you to deal with them directly by email and they will also meet you on your visit to Nerja to discuss everything for the ceremony face to face, making it all that bit more personal.

– Ceremonies at venues tend to be a more relaxed affair, not to mention the sunshine, the fantastic views and great feeling of being outdoors. It also means the guests are already at the venue, so less moving about and no time lost on moving from church to venue, more time to enjoy the day.