When I got married in Barranquilla!

[Fuzzyone]

  When I went back to Colombia to get married I had received a lot of help from several posters here that had went thru the same thing as I had. My family lived across the country so if I had brought my girlfriend here it would have not been much of a wedding here. So I decided to marry her in Colombia so her entire family could be there for it. I think the biggest trail came from the Notery they have like the power of god down there. If they say no you are screwed, plus they can ask for paper work that no one has ever heard of before. We went to 3 different ones before we even got our foot in the door. We ended up having to pay bribes to get the paperwork approved, not huge ones but little presents to grease the skids. You might say I would never do that! but if you want to get married down there you will or you will not get married.


   I ended up paying around 1500. for the reception and invited all her friends and family. We ended up buying the alcohol on the black market because the taxes drove the prices to high, I mean like of of this world. We got married and the next day after the reception we went to Santa Marta for the Honeymoon. We had to sneak out because of course her son would have had a fit. We spent most of the time there swimming and exploring most of the resort area of the beach. The only thing that pissed me off about the place was you could not eat to close to the road because the beggers were horrible and would not leave you alone.


  We came back to Barranquilla and I stayed I think close to about a week before flying home with all the paperwork I needed to bring my wife and step son here.

[Alabamaboy!]

Fuzzy, I got married in Soledad in Sept 2010 at a notary. It was a huge hassle. It did not cost much at all, but the paperwork was ridiculous. I told my wife to offer bribes to "grease things" along as you mentioned, but they would not take anything. They did everything by the book. The only thing they did bend the rules for was that they accepted the scanned copies of my documents which I would be bringing in hand later when we married. This was essential for them to actually schedule our ceremony.

If anyone is thinking about marrying in Colombia, I would say it is a great thing because of the super low price, the fact that your lady will probably have her friends and family at the party, and you can file for the CR-1 green card right away, rather than a fiancee visa.

But it is a relatively tedious process so don't go into it thinking it will take a couple days like you can do here in the States. Better to plan a couple months, especially if you need to get documents with apostile stamps from different States.

[AndyLee]

The notaria here in Valle del Cauca has asked me for apostilled copies of my birth certificate and my divorce decree and certified photo copies of my US Passport, Colombian Pensionado Visa and my Colombian Cedula ID card. His fee to do the paperwork and perform a civil ceremony is 160,000 pesos, about $80.
The hassle of course is that I live in Colombia full time so I will have to send a check (no credit cards accepted) to the State of Missouri for my certified birth certificate then send it to the Secretary of State, again with a check, for the Apostille. They will mail it to a US address only so that means I have to have it sent to a friend who will forward it to me. Then I have to do that all over again for the divorce decree in Massachusetts.
I don't see this as being necessarily onerous or terribly expensive, just time consuming. I estimate it will take two  months to get the two documents delivered to me with Apostille affixed.
The other thing I have heard, and have not yet bothered to verify, is that the documents have to be Apostilled less than 90 days before the civil ceremony, otherwise new documents are required.
Is this similar to what you had to do?

[Alabamaboy!]

The notaria here in Valle del Cauca has asked me for apostilled copies of my birth certificate and my divorce decree and certified photo copies of my US Passport, Colombian Pensionado Visa and my Colombian Cedula ID card. His fee to do the paperwork and perform a civil ceremony is 160,000 pesos, about $80.
The hassle of course is that I live in Colombia full time so I will have to send a check (no credit cards accepted) to the State of Missouri for my certified birth certificate then send it to the Secretary of State, again with a check, for the Apostille. They will mail it to a US address only so that means I have to have it sent to a friend who will forward it to me. Then I have to do that all over again for the divorce decree in Massachusetts.
I don't see this as being necessarily onerous or terribly expensive, just time consuming. I estimate it will take two  months to get the two documents delivered to me with Apostille affixed.
The other thing I have heard, and have not yet bothered to verify, is that the documents have to be Apostilled less than 90 days before the civil ceremony, otherwise new documents are required.
Is this similar to what you had to do?

Yes that was what I had to do. And other things we had to do was to have all documents translated by a certified translator, we had to have a certified document of "single-ness" or something like that. I did a letter which I had notarized and with the Apostille stamp. And also they did a "records search" at the county courthouse where I live which comes back with no marriages. That had to be notarized, Apostille stamp as well. Another requirement was that the notary had to post a notice in the paper for 3 days or a week or some crazy thing before we could get the marriage license or get it scheduled or whatever. I had told my wife to shop around to various notaries, but they were all basically the same, at least in the BAQ/Soledad area.

Oh, one more thing, unless you are completely bilingual, you will need to have a certified translator at the ceremony. The notary we used almost canceled the ceremony because we did not have a translator, but he quizzed me a bit on my Spanish skills and determined I just made the cut off in regards to the Spanish. But the words he was using were not simple terms, so if I would have known about this in advance, I would have had a translator present just to be on the safe side.

[AndyLee]

Yes that was what I had to do. And other things we had to do was to have all documents translated by a certified translator, we had to have a certified document of "single-ness" or something like that. I did a letter which I had notarized and with the Apostille stamp. And also they did a "records search" at the county courthouse where I live which comes back with no marriages. That had to be notarized, Apostille stamp as well. Another requirement was that the notary had to post a notice in the paper for 3 days or a week or some crazy thing before we could get the marriage license or get it scheduled or whatever. I had told my wife to shop around to various notaries, but they were all basically the same, at least in the BAQ/Soledad area.

Oh, one more thing, unless you are completely bilingual, you will need to have a certified translator at the ceremony. The notary we used almost canceled the ceremony because we did not have a translator, but he quizzed me a bit on my Spanish skills and determined I just made the cut off in regards to the Spanish. But the words he was using were not simple terms, so if I would have known about this in advance, I would have had a translator present just to be on the safe side.

yes, the devil is in the details, I forgot to mention that once I get the certified and apostilled documents from the US I then have to send them to a place in Bogota that will translate them and then re-apostille them. It costs 45,000 per document plus courier service so that adds another $100 to the total cost. Still not onerous or expensive, but nonetheless borderline frustrating   with the only real concern being that I can get all these things done within 90 days and not have to start all over again. Do you recall if that 90-day limit was ever a question for you?
Thanks for the reminder on the language barrier, we've already met with the notaria and he is satisfied on that score. I guess my only concern at this time is that I've been divorced for 23 years so there is some likelihood the notaria might ask me for a certificate of singleness although he did not mention it in the interview. But, if they want to do a records search in all the 7 or 8 different cities I've lived in the past 23 years to see if I ever remarried I can see this getting totally out of hand.

[Fuzzyone]

   Well that was the hassle I had to get everything translated. It cost some money but what really almost pushed me over the edge was the translator here messed up one very important page which after a little grease was accepted. I think in the larger cities graft is a accepted fact of life, pay a little things get done faster.

[jvoorhees]

Wow.  That all sounds like a major pain the rear.  So much paperwork.
 
Do marriages in Colombia always require that much paperwork and bureaucracy?  Or just when a gringo is involved?
 
 

[AndyLee]

Wow.  That all sounds like a major pain the rear.  So much paperwork.
 
Do marriages in Colombia always require that much paperwork and bureaucracy?  Or just when a gringo is involved?

Actually, in my case it is only two documents plus the photos of my IDs. Where the rub comes as Fuzzy points out is the translations and the apostilles. So, given that it's a little difficult to get married is probably a good thing. If it was easy, like in Las Vegas, we'd all be married way too in this country.
Actually, there is a very easy way out. You can go with your fiancee to the Notaria, which as mentioned before is like God, and you can sign a Union Libre which simply says you are living together as man and wife. After 2 years of union libre you become common law married. It costs about 15,000 ($7.50) and takes about 1/2 hour. My financee and I have already done that because with this union libre my insurance company covers my fiancee at no charge. The other good thing about this Union Libre is that after 2 years you can apply for a Conjugal Visa to live full time in Colombia which is somewhat similar to a Spousal Visa.
However, for the two years you would have to be here on a work visa or student visa,  because with the ordinary tourist visa you can only stay here one month at a time up to 6 months in a year. Common Law marriage is common in Colombia.
Earlier this year I was mistakenly under the impression that Common Law Marriage is common in the United States, but other posters corrected me and it is only allowed in a very few states in the US.
One more trivia point, you can sign a pre nup in Colombia to protect any property you have outside Colombia, but under Union Libre anything you own in country is 1/2 your partner's after the 2 years is up. This is not a bad thing, it is just what it is, very similar to pre nup in US. However, if you Marry here either in church or civil ceremony you and your wife are instantly 50-50 partners on things you own in Colombia.
Another trivia point, you can actually Pre-Sign a Divorce Agreement at the same time you marry. Then if either of you wants out you can pretty much just walk away and declare your intention at the Notaria to dissolve the marriage.
Please note, I do not know for a fact that Conjugal Marriage and Visa or either the pre-nup or the pre-divorce are actually valid, I'm simply repeating things I picked up from my queries.

[Fuzzyone]

Wow.  That all sounds like a major pain the rear.  So much paperwork.
 
Do marriages in Colombia always require that much paperwork and bureaucracy?  Or just when a gringo is involved?

   I think they make you jump thru the hops only because of problems with gringos coming down and getting married when they are not divorced.

[beginthebeguin]

A_B said

Another requirement was that the notary had to post a notice in the paper for 3 days or a week or some crazy thing before we could get the marriage license or get it scheduled or whatever

This is a streamlined version of the 'banns'. The Atlantico department or the nation must have streamlined this requirement decades ago. In many predominantly Roman Catholic countries for centuries the 'banns' had to be posted in the parish bulletin (And before that method announced at Sunday Mass usually by the local parish priest) for 3 consecutive Sundays in a row. It is a throwback to medieval times when travel was very difficult but a lothario could move at least to the next parish and try to find a new wife without dumping the old one.
And as you know in the major cities everything must be streamlined when it comes to paperwork. It does not disappear but is just streamlined. 

[DesmondID]

yes, the devil is in the details, I forgot to mention that once I get the certified and apostilled documents from the US I then have to send them to a place in Bogota that will translate them and then re-apostille them. It costs 45,000 per document plus courier service so that adds another $100 to the total cost. Still not onerous or expensive, but nonetheless borderline frustrating   with the only real concern being that I can get all these things done within 90 days and not have to start all over again. Do you recall if that 90-day limit was ever a question for you?
Thanks for the reminder on the language barrier, we've already met with the notaria and he is satisfied on that score. I guess my only concern at this time is that I've been divorced for 23 years so there is some likelihood the notaria might ask me for a certificate of singleness although he did not mention it in the interview. But, if they want to do a records search in all the 7 or 8 different cities I've lived in the past 23 years to see if I ever remarried I can see this getting totally out of hand.

The notaria was strict with the 90-day limit in my case. I ended up emailing all my documents before going, having them translated in Medellin, and then having them approved on the condition that I bring the originals that were scanned. I was not required to pull up the "no marriage on file" from the various counties databases.. Instead I found a statement of soltero that was in both English and Spanish (no translation required) I had my mother and brother sign it and of course had it notarized.

The wedding was held in the botanical gardens in Medellin - nice that the notaria made the journey and while he clearly took the job very seriously he turned out to be very nice. It was an excellent wedding and about 20-25 of the wedding party went to the restaurant in the botanical gardens after the ceremony and then out that night. The entire shebang (minus the ring) cost in the 2000 range.