Clos des capucins, Meylan

The words ‘French administration’ and ‘getting married in France’ can conjure rather Kafkaesque images of rubber stamp wielding bureaucrats – but is not nearly as fearsome as that. Having gone through the administrative rigmarole myself, I feel duty-bound to share my wisdom with you, as such advice was palpably thin on the ground when I got married. As a Brit marrying a French citizen, I went for the double whammy of a civil ceremony and a Catholic blessing (I’m Church of England by birth), and just to complicate matters I wanted an English Anglican vicar to add something to the ceremony in English.

When considering how to tackle the jungle of red tape that awaits you, your first stop will rightly be the local town hall or Mairie. Mairies may vary in their administrative procedures but seem to have the necessary forms easily available to casual enquirers. The bullet-pointed instructions below should only be treated as guide, not gospel:

• The couple concerned should have lived in the town in which they want to get married for at least one month – the exception being that if you have parents still resident in the town, this is not obligatory. If you are a resident, you will be asked to provide proof (i.e., a recent bill with your name and address on it).
• The couple will need a minimum of two witnesses at the marriage ceremony.
• You will be asked to provide a copy of your birth certificate – not the one that your parents keep in their filing cabinet but a dated and signed copy of the entry from the official birth registry in your country. For UK nationals, this can be obtained – for a fee of course – from the General Register Office. Note that these copies are stamped and dated at the time of release.
• This document must then be translated by a ‘sworn’ translator (traducteur assermenté). By French law the translated copy of your birth certificate must be submitted within a six month period – after this period the certificate becomes invalidated and you would have to begin the process again. Some nationals may be asked to supply a Certificat de Celibat (proof that you are not already married) but British citizens are not required to do this. At the time of my wedding, in July 2007, I wrote to the British consulate in Lyon, and they sent a document saying that British citizens are considered as good as their word in this respect and thus are not required to obtain one.
• At the time of writing, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office says that British citizens might be required to produce a certificate of custom law (certificat de coutume) depending on the local town hall in which they are getting married. The form can also be downloaded here. This was not the case in my experience.
• According to the website for my local Mairie in Meylan, completed documentation must be provided at least ten days before the wedding – but this may vary depending on the town.

Having navigated a course through the civil administrative obstacles, I then – like a glutton for punishment – went about the business of marrying in the French Catholic church. Among other things I had to provide proof of having been christened, the baptism certificate itself being inexplicably insufficient. This required forms to be sent to the London parish where I was originally baptised for them to fill in and sign. For this I was charged a fairly high (considering the labour that went into it) administrative fee, but not all churches levy charges for such a service.

Furthermore, we had to attend two particularly tedious evenings (préparation au mariage) with about six other couples in which we were forced to confront certain issues related to marriage and commitment. In principle, I have no problem with this, if I want to get married in a Catholic church it is not surprising that the church should want couples to address such subjects. The problem was the overall air of condesciendng smugness by those running the classes, and the fact that certain couples seemed to delight in the chance to hyper-verbalise their relationship issues in front of a group of strangers. I am British, this is not really in my nature. They were two of the longest evenings in my life.

Finally we got married and held the reception at the Clos des Capucins in Meylan, a former monastery overlooking the Belledonne mountain range, and which was not nearly as expensive as it might sound. Now municipally-owned, it is rented out very reasonably to Meylan residents and, at a higher rate, to non-residents. To be certain of securing the premises for the big weekend, we had to book it over a year in advance as competition for such venues is stiff during the wedding season. I am happy to recommend the catering, which was done by Au Prestige Dauphinois, and the chambres d’hotes nearby the Clos called Mas Du Bruchet, where we spent our wedding night.

The one major disappointment of the wedding was the DJ we hired, foolishly, over the telephone and without meeting in person, out of desperation having found most others already busy on the day in question. Operating under the moniker ‘Chris Music’ (which should have roused my suspicions from the start), you couldn’t make him up: large of waist and few of teeth, he was a gruff fun fair sort with an unlikely weekend sideline. Having accepted a very particular list of songs from me, he promptly refused to play them all evening in favour of mindless Euro-disco pool party standards, which he had a penchant for singing over with a microphone. As soon as we saw him we knew we had made a mistake, and I had several cross exchanges with him before finally wresting control of the decks and playing my own songs. No matter – it was, as it should be, the best night of my life.

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