Planning marriage in the Czech Republic

In order to get married in the Czech Republic you will need to do a lot of paper work. The burden can be eased by hiring someone who will help you dealing with all the formalities. Prague’s wedding agencies regularly perform this function and most include paperwork help and translation of documents as part of their wedding-planning fee. But if you or your partner speak Czech, it’s entirely possible to petition for a marriage license on your own.

Here are several tips on how to get married in the Czech Republic.

• The first step you should take toward planning is deciding on date. Because it may be necessary to obtain certain documents from your home country, you should build in plenty of time before the wedding to accommodate any emergency trips home and plan for unexpected surprises. In some cases, the paperwork can take up to six months to process, but the usual time involved is approximately one to two months. It’s also worth noting that a number of the documents necessary for filing the marriage application have a limited validity.
• You’ll also need to determine whether you’ll be having a civil or religious ceremony, as the documents needed for each type of marriage will differ. For civil marriages, you’ll take your documents to the Office of Vital Records in the Municipal Office under whose jurisdiction the venue for your ceremony falls. For church ceremonies, go directly to the officiating church authority.
• Whether you are a non-EU citizen marrying a Czech national, an EU citizen marrying a Czech national or two non-Czech persons marrying one another, you will need the form “A Questionnaire for Entering into Marriage”, available to download via the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic website, The Protocol on Contracting the Marriage form, to be filled in by the appropriate registrar together with you and your fiancé or just one of you, as well as the other documents. Registration takes approximately one month.
• Fees for the translation of documents vary depending on the desired turnaround, but you can expect to pay in total around 400-500 CZK/page. Should you opt for a wedding agency to help you navigate the Czech legalese, the fees are generally included in the flat rate you’ll be paying. If, however, you’re going it alone, note that for Czech-to-foreign-national marriages, a fee of 2,000 CZK is required to process the paperwork. Interpreters cost around 1,800 CZK, or up to 2,500 CZK on the weekends, transportation to the venue not included.