Marriage in Peru

[cabmarc 0]

It sounds like getting married in Peru is complicated. I know you have to get an AIDS test, birth certificate, certificate for being single, all legalized, translated, legalized again, ect. Does anyone know if I have to physically be in Peru for the city to legalize my documents? Can I mail them ahead of time (after having them notarized by the Peruvian consulate where they were issued) to my fiancee and have her translate and legalize them? Reason why I ask is that I can't take that much time off work and I'm starting to think one week won't be enough to get all this stuff done.

Also, we need a wedding announcement in the paper with the date of our ceremony. Again, does anyone know if I have to be physically present for this part?

Anyone with experience with any of this, please help. Thanks.

[BigSigh 12]

I'm not sure about the legalized and translated part (I'm sure if you paid enough that wouldn't be an issue). I know that for the newspaper, you don't have to be present. I wasn't present for that nor any of the paperwork my fiance (now husband) did. Then again, we didn't do anything through the Peruvian Consulate 1st.

[jm&mcs 2]

I got my birth certificate, certificate of being single, baptismal certificate (for the church wedding), and domicile statement all in the US before I went. Sent my single certificate and domicile to one consulate and birth certificate to another. You have to send the certificates to be legalized to the consulate that has jurisdiction over where the official document originated. I had my documents translated here by a company. But found out later that you can have anyone that is fluent translate and then get a notorized statement that the person certifies it is an accurate translation and they are fluent in English and Spanish. The baptismal certificate was translated by a person at the church it came from. But then again, the church wedding isn't legal.

I got my blood test in Peru. Apparently we paid a few extra soles and the results were delivered to the house the same day. I don't know where your fiance is. We did this in Iquitos. The blood tests were very inexpensive.

Since I asked to find out everything I needed before I got there, I thought we were all set. When we went to the office of where is the person that does the civil service to set everything up, there were more papers. I have no idea what they were. I couldn't believe it after I asked for a complete list to start with. But we were in Peru. They would say we need a paper and it is X soles. So I paid it and got it. And then more papers. I don't know how many. But it was all done in one visit. Don't forget the testigos' DNI's.

It all worked out very well. They moved the ceremony to a nice location. The boss of the registration of marriages did the service herself. She even brought me some flowers to hold.

Can you do it in a week? I would say yes if you have everything ahead of time. It is probably more work and time to get American documents legalized in Peru. Get your blood test as soon as you get off the airplane. Make sure your fiance has everything reserved for the day you plan to have your civil service.

Good luck/

[cabmarc 0]

Our municipality will be Lima, so I was a little worried that things move slower there because of how populated it is. Anyway, thank you both so much for your help, I appreciate it!

[quique 0]

It sounds like getting married in Peru is complicated. I know you have to get an AIDS test, birth certificate, certificate for being single, all legalized, translated, legalized again, ect. Does anyone know if I have to physically be in Peru for the city to legalize my documents? Can I mail them ahead of time (after having them notarized by the Peruvian consulate where they were issued) to my fiancee and have her translate and legalize them? Reason why I ask is that I can't take that much time off work and I'm starting to think one week won't be enough to get all this stuff done.

Also, we need a wedding announcement in the paper with the date of our ceremony. Again, does anyone know if I have to be physically present for this part?

Anyone with experience with any of this, please help. Thanks.

I had my civil ceremony in San Luis, LIma last month. My now wife over there did all the paperwork, which is not that bad but that just me since I didn't do much except for producing the cert of being single.

-We had to produce birth certificates (have it translated if its in english).

-Cert of being single. This was tricky for me since i had no idea how to produce a doc like this. What i did was write a letter with my info attesting that I'm single. I then had it notorized. Then I went to the Peruvian counselate in Hartford CT, where they charge 30 bucks to have them stamp it. Then I mailed it to my then fiancee and she had to take it to some ministry to have it "approve" and then it was done.

-No blood/physical proof needed. If you get in good with the municipal clerk and explain your situation they might just let it slide, which is what they did in our case.

Thats basically all I did on my end here in the US. I arrived the day before the wedding and all went smooth since my wife had set up everything pretty well. Didn't do anything more then to sign doc at the time of the ceremony.

quique