How to get married in France with a divorced Brazilian if you are French

As I was telling you on one of my previous posts, Davidson and I will get married this year 🙂 We’re very happy — and mostly relieved now that the paperwork is over, because we’ve spent over 6 months to gather them all.

Note: This post is for you if you are a Brazilian/French couple who want to get married in France.

Our case is special since we’re both working as entrepreneurs and living with my parents.

So first of all, I’m gonna talk about the papers I had to deliver as a French citizen.

Papers you need if you are French

• Birth certificate;
• ID card (1 copy);
• Proof of residency (2 recent documents), preferably landline phone, gas, or electricity bills. If you are living in someone else’s home and doesn’t have any bills in your name, you’ll need the proof of residency for the owner of the home, accompanied by a copy of her ID card, plus a certificate of accommodation (Attestation d’hébergement), in which the owner will testify that you live in her home.

Now for Davidson, there were more papers required.

Papers your need if you are Brazilian (and divorced)

• Birth certificate (Certidão de Nascimento) plus a legal translation (traduction assermentée) from Portuguese to French;
  • You need to request this paper at the registry (cartório) in which you have been registered when you were born. We asked Davidson’s dad to pick it up for us.
  • It can take up to 10 days for the notario to edit the paper.
  • Price for the certificate: approx. R$ 50
  • Price for the translation: 50€-100€
• Wedding certificate (Certidão de Casamento) plus a legal translation;
  • Apparently this document can be requested at any registry. We asked one of Davidson’s aunt to pick it up.
  • It can take up to 5 days for the document to be ready.
  • Price for the certificate: approx. R$ 50
  • Price for the translation: 50€-100€
• Divorce judgement (Certidão de Escritura de Divórcio) plus a legal translation;
  • You need to request this paper at the notario where your divorce has been sentenced. This document’s information is written in the updated wedding certificate, in the section covering the divorce;
  • For this paper, the registry was located in a city where we didn’t know anyone who we could trust to pick it up for us. So we’ve used an online service called Cartório 24 Horas. It’s gonna take between 2 to 4 weeks for the paper to be ready. Then, they can send the document directly to you in France, via Fedex, but the fees are very expensive, so you may want to have the document sent to someone in Brazil, who will then send them to you via regular mail. The document should arrive in France about 2 weeks after being posted.
  • Price for the certificate: approx. R$ 200
  • Price for the translation: 200€-400€
• Certificat de Coutume (Certificado de Costume para Casamento)
  • You need to schedule an appointment at the Brazilian Consulate in France. It takes usually 1 month to get an appointment.
  • More details here for the procedure.
  • Price: 15€
• Certificat de Célibat (Certificado de Celibato – Capacidade Matrimonial)
  • You need to schedule an appointment at the Brazilian Consulate in France.
  • More details here for the procedure.
  • Price: 15€
  • NOTE: the Brazilian Consulate explicitly states that you can only request one document per appointment. However, we managed to get both the Certificat de Coutume and the Certificat de Célibat in one single appointment. I recommend you to schedule 2 appointments and then try to get both documents at the same time. If you succeed, you can simply cancel the second appointment.
• ID (passport or Titre de Séjour);
• Proof of residency (2 recent documents).

Extra papers

• If you have children together, you need to provide:
  • Birth Certificate (1 copy per child);
  • Livret de Famille (1 copy);
• For the witnesses, you need to provide:
  • Proof of residency (1 document per witness);
  • ID (1 copy per witness);
  • Fill a form with their data (name, profession, address, and signature).
    • This form is usually delivered at the City Hall (Mairie).

Good to know

• If you’re in a hurry to get an appointment at the Brazilian Consulate earlier, keep checking their appointment system because there’s always someone canceling their appointments and leaving a free spot that you can take.
• For the Certificat de Célibat, you’ll need to authenticate three signatures. For this (and if you’re in Paris), I recommend asking the notaire Marie-Christine Fauzan at 90 avenue Charles de Gaulle, 92900 Neuilly-sur-seine – 0147225151; You’ll need to come with the 2 French persons who will certify that you’re single/divorced. They don’t have to be the witnesses for your wedding. This service it’s free.
• I recommend using this email to ask for your legal translation: contact@annuaire-traducteur-assermente.fr
  • A pricing was received in less than 30 minutes, the electronic document was received within 3 business days, and the paper followed 2 days later. We were very satisfied with their services.
• Any regular mail sent from Brazil to France takes about 2 weeks to arrive.
• All Brazilian certificates are valid for 6 months counted from the time they were printed in Brazil.
• All French certificates are valid for 3 months counted from the time they were printed in France.
• Other papers that you can use as proof of residency: Attestation de paiements de la CAF (payment notification), your previous Avis d’Imposition (income tax), your Attestation de Carte Vitale (health insurance).