Getting Married in Costa Rica: A Wedding in Paradise
Thinking of getting married in Costa Rica? You could never go wrong!

With canopy tours, scuba diving, sports fishing, golf, and surfing you will never want to leave. Costa Rica has over a dozen national parks and beautiful sites that are perfect for weddings.

Manuel Anttonio National Park offers four stunning beaches, a magnificent setting with islands offshore, and lush rainforests with several welcoming trails. In this park, you are guaranteed close-up encounters with monkeys, sloths, coatimundis, and scarlet macaws. This is an incredible place to visit as you journey around Costa Rica.

If you are NOT a Costa Rican citizen, you will only be required to have a passport valid for at least six months.

If you are marrying a Costa Rican citizen, your future spouse will require the following documents:
- A Costa Rican identity card - "cédula"
- A Certificate of Civil Status issued by the Civil Registry.

If your spouse has been married before in Costa Rica, they will require these additional documents:
- A certified copy of the divorce decree,or
- A certified copy of your previous spouse's death.

If your female spouse had been divorced or widowed, she can remarry only three hundred days after the official issuance date of the divorce decree or former spouses death certificate.

The requirement can be waived if future wife can prove that she is not pregnant before the marriage ceremony, taking a pregnancy test administered by the Supreme Court of Costa Rica at the Forensic Medicine Office in San Joaquin de Flores in Heredia. If the pregnancy test is negative, marriage can occur immediately.

To make the marriage official, you will need two "non relative" witnesses to your wedding. They must have the following documents:  For non-Costa Rican citizens: a passport valid for at least six months.  For Costa Rican citizens: a cédula.

A lawyer, judge or priest in Costa Rica can perform the civil ceremony and binding when the document is registered with the Registro Civil (Civil Registry).

Marriages legally performed and valid in Costa Rica are also legally valid in other countries.  Your marriage certificate will be issued by the Registro Civil between one or two months after being registered.

Your marriage will be legally recognized in the U.S. or Canada when you or your lawyer who performed the ceremony submits your marriage certificate with the appropriate certifications to the U.S. or Canadian Embassies in Costa Rica.

To be legally recognized in the U.S. or Canada., your marriage certificate must be:

- Translated into English by an Official Translator accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Relations
- Authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
- Notarized by a Public Notary
- Certified and signed by the embassy's Consular Section.