65€ for the certificat de coutume? Wow! I just got one last year from the American Consulat for 20€!!
Well, usually I explain these differences on the exchange rate between the US $ and the £ and €, since I have been screwed every which way on those. Whether it be my US tax saving from the US that decreased 30% in value from when I paid them to the refund and transfer to Europe, or the current salary fixed in € and paid into my UK account in £.
But €40 difference? Yet again British prices knock me out.
You're probably going to pay an arm and a leg for the translator too: I suppose you need a sworn one? They should have lists of those at the Mairie.
I've just been quoted €40 for the translation of the birth certificate. But I hadn't thought about the fact that they need to be sworn. Bugger. Another call to make.
If, on your multiple visits to the mairie (and there will be multiple visits, because there's always one document missing, even when you've got all the documents on the list) you find anyone who can give you an explanation as to why the copy of the birth certificate needs to be dated within six months of the wedding, I would love to hear it.
When I got married I turned up with my original, slightly-faded 1960s-vintage birth certificate (complete with 350FF translation), only to be told that this wasn't good enough. So I had to get the recent copy done and then fork out for another translation fee. The translator felt so sorry for me that she did the second translation for next to nothing.
French bureaucracy - can't live with it, can't live with it 
Ah well - I couldn't do that with the original as my Mum has lost that. But...
I did order a copy (at the cost of £25 and don't tell Frog, but in anticipation that he was going to propose soon) and that was dated 8 months before the final wedding date. Then I read the small print and had to order another. At £25 a shot.
Who knew bureaucracy was such a money spinner?
I've forgot what it was like to organise a wedding at the time it was just mad but seven years down the line you forget how much work went into it.
You used to have to produce a certificate that said you really were not married already, too. Wonder what happened to that one?
It's true, EU citizens no longer need a carte de sejour in France, but word hasn't trickled down very well. So far only the immigration office and the prefecture de police really know about it. Unfortunately.
And can I just say Growing Up (Mrs Soldier) had to do all the organising because I managed to arrange a 6 month holiday to the Balkans just prior to the wedding.
Oy. That's a nightmare! At least the planning of the actual ceremony and reception sound like they are going smoothly. But really--a recent copy of the birth certificate? Again...oy.
Yes, Sedulia - the 'certificate of celibacy' (yen that makes me giggle)was scribbled out in biro from the printed official list by the mairie staff. Doesn't leave me hugely confident that they won't ask for it later...
Mrs Solider - I have huge admiration for you. Except there are moments when I wish Frog *wasn't* quite so involved - because then he wouldn't need to stick his oar in when it doesn't need sticking 
I thought that the celibacy certificate was the certificate de coutume? No?
The french sure love their paperwork. This is evidence of that!
I also had to get my celibacy declaration and my birth certificate stamped on the back with an international Apostille in australia (if my memory serves me correctly, this was something that showed that it had international validity?), which counted as ANOTHER page of translation by the translator. *shakes fist*
Thankfully, we DIDN'T have to provide a list of witnesses, with their ids, and they certainly didn't have to speak french. My sister was a witness for us, and all she had to do was smile and sign. hehe.
Good luck, Anna - this will all be worth it in the end
Good luck with the paperwork. Been there done that and I'm not from the EU.
Medical certificate? Is that to prove that you are in your right mind to marry?
Can't wait for the menu!
Good luck!
This will be The [Cyber] Wedding of the Year. We want photos, lots
In Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, he wrote a bit about that French red tape.
Ouch.
I'm in the middle of trying to marry a Brazilian girl. It's about the same level of unnecessary complication...
Good luck Oiseau! I went through the same rigamarole 13 years ago, only slightly more complicated by the destruction in a hurricane of the Registrar's Office in Fiji whence my "extrait de naissance" was supposed to come from!
Our medical certificate included an AIDs test. Is that still required?
Yep Antipo - still a medical test including various blood samples. Looking forward to that one then...
I'm just a plain ole american marrying another plain ole american in plain ole america. And I thought *I* had lots to do!? when is the wedding anyway??
Nancy - May 20th 2006 - which is creeping up very fast!
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