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Choosing the perfect destination for your wedding day can be an extremely taxing and difficult decision, especially if you have set you heart on a destination away from your home country where English is only intermittently spoken. All couples have the same underlining desires for their wedding day; a sunny day at a fantastic venue which provides delicious food, great entertainment with a top rate hospitality and if the couple are religious, a romantic church with an understanding priest.

 

Lisbon excels on these basic wedding desires and as a fantastic holiday destination provides even more for your guests. All of this is combined with Lisbon's outstanding value making Lisbon great and unique destination to consider for your special wedding day. The only down side to Lisbon is the horrendous bureaucracy which Portugal unfortunately again excels at. The key to planning a wedding in Lisbon is time, preparation and patience, let us at LisbonWeekendGuild.com help with our starters guide to getting married in Lisbon. Please be aware this is a starting guide with local paper work constantly changing and Portuguese bureaucracy has a reputation for being extremely slow and illogical.

Lisbon is a beautiful city to get married in; the people are passionate and the city has a romance oozing from every traditional building. As an added bonus your money will stretch much further when organising a wedding, when compared to other European countries.

 

Portugal is a Roman Catholic country and to be married in one of the beautiful churches both the bride and groom must be of that religion. There are 2 Anglican churches within Lisbon but they are far less charming. Non religious services are conducted by registrars at specially designated sites throughout the city, for a non religious marriage the use of a Quinta (see later on in the guide) is recommended.

 

The church requires to see both parties birth and baptism certificates and for the couple to have attended marriage lessons which are held in the original country. Surprisingly considering how central the church is to Portuguese life and laws, the wedding service held within the church is not recognised by Portuguese law.

 

A civil service must be conducted 10 days (or earlier) before the church service, so that all of the paperwork can be transferred to the church. Prior to the civil wedding the names of the couple must be displayed at the Portuguese registry office and one member of the couple must reside in Portugal for a minimum of 30 days.

With all things considered unless you can book 6 months off it is probably easier to conduct the civil wedding in your native country and translate the documentation into Portuguese. The translation must be performed by a recognised translator and is reviewed by your countries Portuguese embassy. The Portuguese embassy in London has a (rightfully) reputation for being incredible slow.

 

It can take hours of ringing before the phone is answered and then they have a turn around time of 2-3 weeks just to reply as to when your appointment is. Do not leave things to the last minute because they just wont happen!

 

The Catholic wedding lessons are commonly only ran twice a year so book your self a place as soon as possible as the church will refuse to marry you if they have not been completed (or no formal certificate is provided).

 

Your local church must complete their right to wed documents which will be sent out to the chancellery in Lisbon, again here there have been horror stories of documents being lost so it is always advisable to take a copy of any important information being sent out.

 After all of this work you maybe wondering if it is worth getting married in Portugal, and the answer is always going to be a resounding...

YES

Because, all churches are available once you have paid your fee for you 4 witnesses 40 Euros, this means your special day can be in one of the following:

• The charming Church of Saint Antony.
• The spectacular monastery of Saint Jeremy.
• Lisbon’s cathedral The Se.

Each of these churches (or cathedrals) can be book for the amazing price of 40 Euros!

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