EU citizen marrying abroad or how to get married in Morocco if you are Slovak living in UK

Hi everyone. My name is Nikita, I am a Slovakian living in Scotland, UK, and I met my husband on a dating app. Here is our story.

Me and Adil first met on Tinder in November and were writing as friends for few months. In February, disillusioned by dating in UK, I messaged Adil if he wanted to meet up if I came to Morocco. He was very happy to say yes. I booked my Airbnb and booked the flight for the very next day.

Adil proposed at the end of my holiday. As he got 2 tourist visa refusals before, we had to get married in Morocco. And since this is not an easy process, we decided to share our journey with you.

Here is the MARRIAGE CHECKLIST of all the documents that I needed:

In Arabic, apostille

In Arabic, apostille

In Arabic, apostille

In French, stamped by office, NO apostille

In English, NO apostille

And here is the road how I got all documents.

CERTIFICATE OF NO IMPEDIMENT (CONI) — as a citizen of Slovakia, Slovakia does not issue such document. Instead they can provide a document that says, that they don’t provide it and that you can get an affidavit that says that you are single.

Since I didn’t have many days of holiday left, I was trying to get everything from UK. Embassy was no help. They issued me with the letter, but no affidavit. At the end I found out at Marrakech office, that CONI from Scotland is enough.

This cost me £30 and another £40 for apostille. To get CONI you need to find your marriage registry office and bring them your passport, proof of address (not older than 3 months) and translation of birth certificate. Translation can be done by your friend that just need to sign it, no need for official translator or anything. CONI will be issued 28 days from application so take that into consideration.

COPY OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE — this can’t be older than 3 months. My mum got it for me in Slovakia. It can be any family member. She paid €5 and got it at local registry office (matricny urad). There was one next to my village. Apostille was done at the district office (okresny urad).

SLOVAKIAN CRIMINAL RECORD — I actually got this at the embassy. But. They never told me that it will not be translated for me so I paid over £70 for it and at the end had to send it back to Slovakia to translate it. If I realised that, I would get my mum to get it for me at the police station in Slovakia. I asked the embassy for apostille too. Instead the police sent a paper confirming that the criminal record is valid. Court appointed translator was a bit hesitant with this but at the end said it is ok.

They sent me a confirmation email and you can track it to see when it’s ready. I think I checked week later and it was already ready at the station. I believe this was free.

CERTIFICATE OF NATIONALITY — I think Slovakia can issue this but since my passport is proof of my nationality and it has french on it, Adil pressed on them in the office and they said is enough. I, however, decided I rather not risk it and I got the passport translated by court appointed translator as well, I didn’t bother with apostille on this one.

CERTIFICATE OF RESIDENCE — this is basically proof of address. Anything with your address on it. I used my national insurance number letter as it has both address and date. Can’t be older than 3 months. I got it translated in Morocco as this can be translated by any translator and it was cheaper to get it done in Marrakech.

When I got to Morocco, first thing we did was getting an engagement certificate from police that was confirming Adil is my fiance and I am there to get married. This is due to us being interrogated by a policeman on my first visit, because we had a picnic in a park. We didn’t want this to happen again and surely Adil did get stopped this time as well and had to show this certificate to a different policeman.

Here is the MOROCCAN CHECKLIST of all the documents that I needed:

PICTURES — we made 16 for each of us. Why they need so many I have no idea. But i think we had 5 or so left at the end.

MEDICAL CERTIFICATE — we got this at Adil’s local doctor. Nurse checked my breathing and pushed on my belly. She asked if I am pregnant. Not sure what the rules are, if you are pregnant as they are big on celibacy in the country.

PREGNANCY CHECK — we didn’t know that we need this, so when we went with our papers to the court, the officer told us to get it. He sent us to a doctor nearby but they didn’t do it there. At the end we found a doctor somewhere who wrote us a paper for a clinic. We paid £12 for it. We went to the clinic with that paper and I got seen straight away. Nurse drew my blood and they told us to get the results in 2 hours.

This is the full list ladies and gentlemen. Next was making copies of each document, we made 6! and were left with maybe 1 or 2. Then the never-ending waiting either at court or the police station.

Altogether the process took us 5 days, I came on Thursday at midnight, and we got married on Friday the following week.

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