Getting Married in Greece – What Documents are Required?
It is becoming increasingly popular to get married abroad. The perfect weather and beautiful setting make Greece a very popular wedding destination each summer. The Greek Islands, most notably Santorini, Crete and Zante, have some stunning wedding venues.
We know that planning a wedding can be a stressful experience and we have written this article to help put your mind at ease when preparing the documents you need for this purpose.
What Documents are Required?
The documents required for a marriage in Crete may differ from the documents required for a marriage in Rhodes. The marriage laws in Greece are somewhat localised and there will be different document requirements in different regions. We recommend contacting the local town hall (‘dimos’) to find out about the local marriage laws and to clarify what documents are needed. We assist many clients with the preparation of their documents for Greek weddings each year and, in our experience, the following documents are typically required –
Certificate of No Impediment
The Certificate of No Impediment is a document issued in the UK by your local register office. This document is used as evidence that you are allowed to marry and there are no impediments to the proposed marriage. We outlined how to obtain this document in a previous article. Both you and your partner will require this document.
Contact your local register office to request the certificate of no impediment for yourself and your partner.
Birth Certificate
Both you and your partner will typically need to present your long-form birth certificates. This is the version of the document that also contains the parental details. If required, we can assist with obtaining replacement documents directly from the General Register Office in the UK.
Divorce Document
If either yourself or your partner has previously been married you will typically need to present the divorce document as evidence that this previous marriage has been dissolved. This will typically be the Decree Absolute or Final Order from the court.
Deed Poll
If you have previously changed your name for any reason you will need to provide evidence of this in the form of a deed poll.
How Can We Help?
Once you have collated these documents, we can assist you with getting these correctly legalised and translated in order for these documents to be officially recognised in Greece. The documents will need to be issued with the Apostille via the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
The documents will also typically need to be translated by an official Greek ‘Sworn Translator’.
We provide Apostille and Sworn Translation services for UK documents being used in Greece on the Greek mainland and the Greek Islands. We can also offer discounted rates for orders containing multiple documents.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for advice on getting your documents legalised and translated.
