Our Marriage: Moroccan Process
This is part II of Our Marriage Process. We will explain the processes and documents for the Moroccan resident, so here we go!
The information in this post is all based off of our experience in Tetouan, Morocco. The exact requirements and processing might vary based on which city you will be married in within Morocco.
Prior to your fiancé arriving to Morocco with his/her documents (see all documents the US Citizen will need HERE), have him/her mail you the documents he/she has collected to be translated into Arabic. This will save you time! Translations take between 2 to 3 days to complete depending on the amount of documents you have. The cost is hefty at around $10 per document, which is about 100 MAD (Moroccan Dirham).
Also, make sure you are happy with your translator and look over his/her translations to be sure they are correct. We found a couple mistakes in our translations from Arabic to English. The translator happily corrected them free of charge. If you are satisfied with his/her work, keep a business card handy because you will need to use them again if you are planning to eventually apply for a visa.
Secondly, you (the Moroccan resident) need to have all of your required documents collected before your fiancé arrives in Morocco. I didn’t have my documents before Hannah came and it would have saved us a lot of running around Tetouan had I done so before her arrival. You live, you learn.
The Moroccan Resident Documents:
- Police record حسن السيرة من مركز الشرطة - Criminal record of the court. حسن السيرة من المحكة - Birth certificate شهادة الميلاد - Certificate of celibacy or divorce decree شهادة العزوبة أو الطلاق - Courtship certificate (Application for marriage) The celibacy certificate should be received one day prior to the receipt of courtship.
- Certificate of good health شهادة طبية - 8 pictures ثمانية صور
After all documents from both of you have been collected, translated, and certified you will take your stack of papers (and pictures) to the court. The processing will begin and you will need to travel back and forth to the court to know when your case is ready for the next step. (Yes, very annoying. If you have an Adoul from the beginning, your case will be much easier).
After initial processing, the court will send your case to the principal police office for more processing. The police office will contact you to have an interview.
The interview was simple for us. The majority of the questions were related to documents that were sitting directly in front of him. He asked to see both of our diplomas, he asked what Hannah’s father’s occupation was, and made notes of our responses on the outside of a folder. He collected our photos and told us that he would call us when the processing was complete.
After the police interview you wait to send your case back to the court to process again, this time you will have an interview with a judge.
Again, the questions were simple. For example, some questions were: “How and when did you meet?” “What are your jobs?” “How did you decide to get married?” “What does your family think of your relationship?”
If the judge is satisfied with your answers, then you will need to contact an Adoul (if you haven’t already). It is best if you have an Adoul from the beginning. They will help your process go much more quickly. We were lucky with our Adoul, he was always available to help us whenever we needed him and his work was very fast.
Take your documents to the Adoul and wait for him to process your documents.
This is the last step. The Adoul finishes the marriage by providing a marriage certificate for both of you to complete and that’s it! You’re legally united and married.
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