Planning a Curaçao wedding

Getting married in Curaçao: the legal process for US couples

Somewhere between the paperwork and the day itself, there is a moment when a couple realizes the hard part is over. We would like to get you there quickly.

Getting legally married in Curaçao as a US couple is a real process, and it is a manageable one. There are four documents, a handful of rules about how they need to look, and a fee scale that depends on when and where you say your vows. What follows is the whole thing, laid out plainly, so you can read it once and stop worrying about it.

Two ways to do this

Marry legally in Curaçao. Your wedding day is the legal one. The paperwork below applies, and you leave the island married in the eyes of both countries.

Marry legally at home, celebrate here. Some couples sign at a courthouse in their home state, quietly and often months before, then have the ceremony that actually matters to them on a beach in Curaçao with everyone they love watching. No apostilles, no couriers, no clock.

For a symbolic ceremony you have three options. Gigi can officiate, we can bring in an officiant we trust, or someone you love can stand up and do it. Plenty of couples choose a family friend, and it is often the most moving version of the three. The ceremony is written with you, and nobody watching would know the difference. The vows are yours either way.

Neither choice is more real than the other. Couples who choose the second one usually do so because a timeline is tight or because the paperwork is simpler to handle from home. Couples who choose the first one want the day to be the day.

What an apostille actually is, and why a notary is not enough

This is the piece that confuses almost everyone, and getting it wrong is the most common way a couple loses weeks.

An apostille is a certificate issued by your state government, usually the Secretary of State's office, confirming that a document is genuine. It gets physically attached to the document.

Here is the part couples miss. A notarized document is not an apostilled document.Notarization is a step along the way, not the destination. When you have a statement sworn before a notary, that notarized document then has to go to your Secretary of State, who issues an apostille certifying the notary's signature and authority. The Civil Registry in Curaçao needs that second certificate. Without it, the document does not qualify, however official the notary stamp looks.

For documents issued by the state itself, like a birth certificate, the apostille certifies the State Registrar's signature instead, and there is no notary involved.

One more thing worth knowing. Documents are apostilled by the state that issued them, not the state where you live. A birth certificate from Tennessee is apostilled by Tennessee, even if you have lived in Texas for a decade. Couples from different states will be dealing with different offices and different processing times, and that is completely normal.

The rules every document has to follow

These apply to every document on the list, and there is no room to move on any of them.

Originals only. No scans, no photocopies, no PDFs. The Civil Registry needs the physical document with the physical apostille attached, in hand.

Nothing older than six months at the time of submission. A birth certificate you ordered last year will not work, even though nothing about your birth has changed.

English, Dutch, or Spanish. Anything in another language needs certified translation.

Passport copies are the one exception. Copies are fine. Everything else must be original.

Everything travels by courier. FedEx, UPS, or DHL, or handed to us in person. Not regular mail. These are irreplaceable originals crossing an ocean, and they need to be tracked.

What you need

1. Cover letter with the marriage petition

The formal request to marry in Curaçao. It states your intention, the location, the date and time of your ceremony, both of your names and signatures, and it comes with copies of your passports.

We provide this form once your venue and ceremony time are confirmed, so this one is not something you need to chase.

2. Witnesses

The number depends on where you hold your ceremony.

Outside the Civil Registry, which includes any beach, venue, or private location: six witnesses, each at least 21 years old, each providing a copy of their passport.

At the Civil Registry: two to four witnesses, same age requirement, same passport copies.

Six is more than most US couples expect, and for a large wedding it settles itself naturally among parents, siblings, and closest friends. For an elopement or a very small celebration, it can be the one requirement that does not fit.

If you would rather not bring six people, we can arrange witnesses for you. It is a paid service at $50 per witness, and it means the two of you can marry on a beach with nobody else present and still meet the requirement in full.

3. Birth certificate for each partner

Original, bearing the signature of the State Registrar, with an apostille seal attached.

Order these fresh from the state where you were born. The six month rule applies here as much as anywhere.

4. Proof of marital status for each partner

The checklist calls this an uittreksel, an extract of civil status. In the Netherlands and Curaçao this is a standard document that any civil registry can produce on request. In the United States it does not exist, and that catches almost every couple off guard.

Here is what US couples do instead.

You swear a marital status affidavitin front of a notary public. It is a short sworn statement giving your full name and confirming that you have never been married, or that you became single on a particular date and have remained single since. Many Secretary of State offices publish a form for exactly this purpose. You sign it in the notary's presence, and the notary stamps it.

Then, and this is the step that matters, the notarized affidavit goes to your Secretary of State for an apostille.The apostille certifies the notary's signature. That apostilled affidavit is what the Civil Registry accepts.

We have walked couples through this from Texas, Tennessee, and Arizona, among others. The form varies by state, the process does not: swear it, notarize it, apostille it, courier it.

5. Divorce decree, if it applies

If either of you has been married before, you will also need a certified copy of your divorce decree, or a certificate confirming you have not remarried after a divorce or the death of a spouse. Original, with an apostille seal.

What it costs

Paid to the Civil Registry:

Most of our couples fall into the third line, because most of our couples are getting married somewhere with a view. The $305 covers the officiant coming to you.

Optional, if you need it:

Your own costs at home, ordering certificates and obtaining apostilles, sit on top and vary by state. Our work on the legal process is included in your package.

What language will our ceremony be in?

English, and it is not an unusual request. Civil ceremonies here can be conducted in English, Dutch, Spanish, or Papiamentu, and couples choose whichever suits the people in the room. If you have family who would rather hear it in another language, ask us and we will find out what is possible.

Your timeline, counting backward

After the wedding

You are married. There is one more piece, and it matters if you need proof of your marriage back home for a name change, immigration, insurance, or anything else.

Two business days after your wedding, the marriage certificate can be requested from the Civil Registry. Receiving the original with an apostille seal takes a few business days beyond that. That certificate is then translated into English by a certified translator in Curaçao, and the translation itself has to go back to the Civil Registry for its own apostille seal.

So the sequence is: certificate, apostille, translation, apostille on the translation. Four steps, each with its own waiting period.

Most couples fly home well before this finishes.

If you are not going to be on the island afterward, we can handle the whole thing and ship the finished certificate to your door. That runs to roughly $150, covering every fee, the certified translation, and the courier. The running around is ours, and it is already part of what your package includes. Nothing left for you to chase from four thousand miles away.

What we handle, and what stays with you

We will tell you exactly what to order and check every document before it goes anywhere near the Civil Registry. Nobody discovers a problem in the wedding week.

What goes wrong, and how it does not

A notarized document with no apostille. The single most common one. The notary stamp looks official and feels like the finish line. It is not. Every document needs the apostille on top.

Documents that are too old. A birth certificate ordered ten months before the wedding is expired by the time it is submitted. Order at the right moment rather than the earliest one.

The wrong apostille office. Documents are apostilled by the state that issued them, wherever you live now.

Sending copies. Originals only, with the single exception of passports.

Underestimating state processing times. Some Secretary of State offices turn apostilles around in days and some take weeks. Check yours early rather than assuming.

A missing divorce decree. If either of you was married before, this is not optional and it holds up everything.

Every one of these is avoidable, and none of them has caught one of our couples, because we check before anything is submitted.

Where to start

Once your venue and ceremony time are set, everything else follows in order and we will walk you through it. If you are still deciding whether to marry legally here or at home, that is worth a conversation, and it usually takes about ten minutes to work out which one suits you.

You might also like to see how these days actually come together, or read about how we work.