Hi
Having used this forum for help with the marriage process in Morocco, I thought I would share my own experience to help anyone else who needs it. Sorry for the long post but I will try to be as detailed as possible as I know it was the super detailed posts on here that helped me the most.
Please note this is specific to getting married in Marrakech and may differ slightly in other cities.
I am a British citizen (male) and I got the following documents:
1) Birth Certificate
2) Basic DBS. Contrary to what some people say on the forum, for me a basic DBS was accepted and I did not need an ACRO certificate
3) Decree Absolute (divorce certificate which is only needed if you are divorced of course)
4) Company Letter confirming I am self employed and my job description and salary
5) Certificate of Incorporation (for my company which the translator said I would need as I was self-employed)
If you are not self-employed you will require 3 months pay slips also.
I did not need a certificate confirming I am Muslim, as the court was happy to accept that I am a Muslim from birth. But you will need this certificate if you need to convert to Islam or the court requests it even if you are already a Muslim.
Also you do not require a Certificate of No Impediment, as you will receive a similar document from the British Consulate (see below).
Documents must be dated within 3 months of your application to the court (not applicable to Birth Certificate or Decree Absolute)
In Morocco I needed to get the following documents:
1) Doctor's certificate confirming good health. Any Dr can do this. It cost 200dhs for both me and my partner.
2) From the British Consulate two documents (an affirmation which has replaced the CNI and a certified copy of your passport). You will need to make an appointment in advance for the British Consulate online. You can select Rabat or Marrakech. Try to make this in advance as possible once you know the dates you want to travel. The appointments are hard to get so keep checking online everyday. I booked mine almost 12 weeks in advance! Cost for this is £75 and payable by debit/credit card.
3) Moroccan Criminal Record Certificate (you can order this online a few days before and get it delivered to the city you are getting married in).
All documents in English must be translated into Arabic by a court approved local translator. To save time you can contact them by email or WhatsApp before travelling to Morocco and send them the documents so they can make a start. By doing this you can save a day or two. I paid 1600dhs for all my documents to be translated. You can negotiate the price in advance. Happy to recommend the translator I used in Marrakech, just send me a DM.
My fiancé needed the following documents (female Moroccan fiancé):
1) Extract of Birth Certificate
2) Administrative Attestation of the fiancé
3) Criminal Record
4) Final Judgement of Divorce (if divorced)
5) Medical Certificate & Non pregnancy certificate
6) Certificate of Residence
7) Copy of National ID
You will both also need passport sized photos. We had 8 each taken. But only needed 4 each in the end.
We made the personal decision to use a lawyer to help us with the process. But I must stress you DO NOT need a lawyer, you can do the process yourselves if you wish too. I had work related reasons for wanting to use a lawyer to try and speed the process up if at all possible and for her to do as much of the running around at the court as possible and was happy to pay for this. With hindsight I can say using her made the court process stress free and I do believe it sped things up at the court, as there was another couple sat waiting and they were not making the same progress as we were making. Our lawyer was able to walk in and out of offices without having to wait in the queues outside each of the offices. I guess it's a case of who you know. The lawyer won't be able to help you with the police process but will be able to at the court. If you do decide you want to use a lawyer in Marrakech, I would highly recommend the one I used. If you want her details you can DM me.
Now the process we went through:
I arrived in Marrakech on Wednesday 4th May.
Thursday 5th May:
My partner and I went to the British Consulate for our appointment. You will need your passport and Decree Absolute if divorced. My fiancé needed her National ID. You will fill some forms out and walk away with the two documents mentioned above. These two documents must then be certified at the Foreign Office in Rabat or Agadir.
Went for Drs appointment to get certificates of good health and non pregnancy.
Friday 6th May:
Went to the translator to pick up the documents I had sent him in advance by email. Word of warning…get your fiancé to check the documents and spelling of everything to make sure there are no errors!
Sunday 8th May:
Travelled to Rabat
Monday 9th May:
Picked up criminal record certificate from the Ministry of Justice and got the two documents from the British Consulate certified at the Foreign Office. When you go to the Foreign Office only you can go in. We started at 9am and were finished by 10am, so could a get an earlier train back to Marrakech. You can save a lot of time here by ordering your criminal records online at least a few days before. I sent the translator the 2 documents from the British consulate by WhatsApp to be translated which he would do by the next day. You may not need to get these translated as they are in french so they maybe accepted by the court without translation into Arabic, but I didn't want to take the risk so got them done anyway.
We were back in Marrakech by 3pm!
Tuesday 10th May:
Collected final two translated documents from the translator.
Got 4 x photocopies of all our documents and went to get them certified as copies at a legislative office (your fiancé will know where to do this).
Met our lawyer and gave her the documents we had got and agreed to meet at the court the following day.
Wednesday 11th May:
Got to the court at 10am. Our lawyer asked us to sit in a waiting area. She proceeded to submit our documents to the relevant offices. She only called us when we were required to sign some papers. An hour or so later she called us to an office, where my fiancé was given 2 sealed envelopes. We were told to take one of these to my fiancés local police station and the other to her local district office and we were then to return to the court with the reports that we would be given in sealed envelopes.
We went straight to the police station and were asked to go into an office by the chief. He checked the envelope and asked for copies of all our documents and then asked my partner to come back the next day at 10am to collect the report that we needed to return to the court. No interview besides a couple of basic questions and we would collect and take the police report directly back to the court ourselves rather than having to wait for the police to send it directly back to the court themselves, which can take days by all accounts.
We then went to the district office with the 2nd sealed envelope and were asked to give copies of all our documents again. But here we didn't get so lucky. The chief was not there. His secretary took my fiancés number and said she would call her once the report was ready to collect, which could take up to 48 hours.
Thursday 12th May:
Got the call in the afternoon that the report we were waiting for was ready to collect.
Friday 13th May:
Collected the 2nd report and returned to the court to meet our lawyer. We gave her both sealed envelopes which she submitted to the court. She told us we would now need have to wait a few days for the judge to approve the marriage and issue the certificate.
Monday 16th May:
Got a call from our lawyer that the judge had approved the marriage and she had collected our certificate for us and we could meet her later that day to collect it. Now we are free to get married and our wedding is in July.
From Day 1 when we had the British Consulate appointment to receiving our marriage approval it took 8 working days and we could have probably saved a day or two on this as well, if we had planned to travel to Rabat earlier.
If you are on a tight schedule, which I have read many people are due to the time they can off work, it can be done. You just need to know the most important thing you need to do is plan properly. Firstly send your documents to a translator in advance before arriving in Morocco. Secondly order your Moroccan criminal record certificate online. Third, plan your days so you can get as much done as possible once you arrive. The first couple of days once you arrive cram your days to get all the pre-court work done. If you plan your days meticulously then you can speed things up considerably.
This was our experience and things may differ for others.
One bit of advise I was given by the translator is that always have a plan B. Things don't always go as smoothly and in Morocco as they would in your home country. You may experience delays and waiting but this is just part of the process.
Feel free to drop me a DM if you have any questions.
Regards
Jav
