Civil Weddings
Don't let a legality spoil your dream wedding!
Current legislation in the UK allows brides to be married in church, and process into the sacristry where the patient registrar is waiting for them to sign the official legal register. That way, couples do not notice the 'intrusion' of the civil wedding!
When brides come to Mallorca, they get very upset at the idea of having to 'be married' before they walk up the aisle. Let me explain this.
Throughout Europe, the legal registration of a church marriage is required separately from the Church wedding. In the UK we have in the past been able to lump the two together, with the long-suffering registrar sitting in the cold sacristry waiting for the bride and groom to go in and sign.
Some who don't want a chuch wedding have come to consider this legality in the registry office as a 'Civil Wedding' because they have no other and they need to make it as special as possible...
Officially it is the lawful registering of a couple's intention to be together as man and wife, as opposed to living together as partners, which gives them no protection in law. Registering makes them married by law and therefore covered by the laws for husband and wife.
We have been informed by the Roman Catholic Church in Mallorca that you do not need to have your civil registration in the UK first. Being a Catholic country, Mallorca's priests are also registrars. The paperwork is a bit more complicated but we are pleased to be able to offer a FULL wedding for Roman Catholics now in Mallorca.
Please note, this concession does apply only to Roman Catholic weddings.
Church weddings are celebrations reserved for Christian or other religiously-inclined peoples. These are ceremonies where the bride and groom make their vows to each other in the presence of a Minister of that church, and the congregation. They are then married in 'the sight of God'.
But being married in the sight of God does not give you the legal protection of lawful registration of that bonding. You have to have both.
Thus, a marriage is two part:
The civil 'married in the eyes of the law'
The religious 'married in the sight of God'
For a religious person, the civil registration means very little to their conviction of what a proper marriage is. So no bride should feel distressed that her wedding is spoilt because she cannot 'go up the aisle as a single woman'. She is still a single woman in the eyes of the Church, until she has made her vows to her intended, at the altar in front of a priest.
For those with no religious conviction, the civil ceremony is sufficient, and they make much of it, sometimes going in full wedding dress, with flowers etc.. to make an occasion.
This is not necessary! It is a choice for those who will not have the romance of a church wedding. For those who want a church wedding, they can put as little emphasis on the civil registration as they like. One clergyman I know tells people to go along in their jeans in their lunch-hour; it's like signing a mortgage, but this time it's a mortage for each other - and even longer!
So for all you romantic brides with lovely visions of wafting up the aisle to be joined in matrimony, before God and your guests, in Mallorca... that does not change just because you have signed a bit of paper in the Registrar's office in your home country beforehand!
It is the legal formality and, having already been done before you arrive in Mallorca, does away with the signing of the register after the church wedding ceremony, leaving the congregation sitting 'twiddling their thumbs' - you can all get straight on to the photographs and reception!
Important! Due to recent legislation from Central Government in Madrid, foreigners may not marry by civil law in Mallorca (or anywhere in Spain in fact) unless they are resident for at least two years. This, as far as we have been told, will be corrected, but for the time being, unless you live and work in Mallorca, you cannot be married by civil law.
We can arrange civil weddings in Italy. If you are not getting married in 2004, check back with this site, as we are actually in communication with EU legislators and central government and hope to have some success in bringing this problem to a satisfactory conclusion by end 2005.
