Hi Alice,
I just got married in Morocco on June 5th of this year.
I may not have all the answers you need but here's what I learned and it may be helpful;
Some of the things you need for your marriage in Morocco.
1. criminal record checks from both countries, since you are a Canada traveling with a Canadian passport and also I will assume a resident of the USA, with a green card/visa.
2. A divorce document, am not sure what you call it exactly as I've never been married before
3. your birth certificate
4. a letter from your employer, stating what your position is, what you earn and how long you have worked there. If you are self employed then some sort of statement of your taxes or anything that proves you are the owner of the business and generate some income
5. medical documents, stating that you are not pregnant (this is really important apparently). I brought this but also had to do a medical with a doctor there to verify
6. passport size photos, you will need at least 3/4 for various papers
To speed things up if you can get any of these documents translated to French if not Arabic that will help a lot in waiting around for translations. I brought everything in French as I'm from Canada and I could request a lot of my documents in French. This saved us about a week because there are plenty of translators that can do French to Arabic but English to Arabic was more expensive and time consuming.
Most importantly expect the whole process to take 3-4 weeks at best. Ours took 2 weeks but that's because my husband's family worked their connections at every level of the process, and trust me there are so many levels. Oh and of course bring lots of money for the ever so important and popular bribing process to get any document processed, stamped, notorized...etc...etc.
Oh also, it's not what the Canadian Embassy requires it's what the Aduls require to perform the marriage. Get your husband to ask the Adul that will be marrying you exactly what you need before leaving for Morocco. The Adul that married us gave us a step by step list of what we needed and had to do. You will have to make two trips to the Canadian Embassy in Rabat, one to request 2 documents "permission to marry" and "confirmation of citizenship", this costs $50 CDN. Then they will tell you to return in 2 days to pick these up, so allow for that time and that's all the Embassy does, the rest is Moroccan government, courts and aduls.
You're welcome to email me at
rubensraven@hotmail.com if you have any other questions. Best of luck and remember not to get discouraged, there's a lot of hurry up and wait but it's how the system works, just go there prepared with every piece of paper they may ask for.
Raven
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