Legal Requirements for Marriage

You can carry out the wedding of your dreams in Panama. This is a country will of oportunities, leyend and history, surrounded by natural beauty with infinities of options to enjoy. They are the motive for which many couples decide to get married in this beautiful nation.

Organize and plan a wedding in Panama is relatively easy as long as you have complied with all the legal formalities before the ceremony. The following are some aspects on the issue and which are necessary to take into consideration.

The future couple must have in mind that the unity of marriage begens with its legal effects, from the celebration and registry at Panama´s Civil Registry. So before the church wedding the couple must carry out the necessary paperwork to validate the civil marriage or verify that the marriage acts are registered in the institution´s respective files.

If the couple want to get married in Panama City, if one of the couple lives in the capital, you must go to the family municipal tribunal of the province. You must express yuor desire to get married and will receive an application which must be presented in the Civil Registry in order to get the Birth Certificate of both as well as the Singles Certificate of each in order to verify that there is no legal impediment for the marriage ceremony.

Once the couple has complied with the requirements of handing over the Authorized Documentation for Marriage, to the tribunal, a date will be set to celebrate the marriage. These documents must be presented two or three days before the marriage.

The couple must know that there are Authorized officials to exercise the marriage and only these officials are authorized to celebrate such acts in Panama, according to what is stipulated by law. The Panamanians that have married abroad, can validate your marriage in the Civil Registry in the Republic of Panama through a lawyer with an authentic or legalized marriage certificate in the country where the marriage was held in addition to documents.

If anyone that opposes the marriage and presents Proof of any legal impediments or the authorized official had knowledge of any, the marriage ceremony would be suspended until a legal declaration is made.

In the marriage celebration you must observe the following formalities:
Together the official that authorizes the act, its secretary, the couple and witnesses, the secretary will read out loud Section 1 of Chapter 4 of the present title versus the rights and duties of the couple, then the official will ask each one of them if their persist in their decision to celebrate the marriage ceremony. If it does take place and they respond positively, he will declare the couple man and wife in the name of the Republic by law.

The declaration of the couple cannot be subjected to conditions or terms. If the parts add a condition or term, the official will not proceed in the marriage ceremony. However, if the marriage takes place, the condition and the terms will not be valid.

However, when two people get married they are subjected to a matrimonial economic regime in the participation of their earnings acquired by each one, as long as they do not pact matrimonial chapters, before or after the marriage. If one of the couple wishes that their possessions continue as before the marriage, they can achieve matrimonial chapters which is type of contract agreed on by the couple, before the the Public Notary and through the Public Scripture which will express their decision in agreeing to a specific matrimonial economic regime, according to previous agreement.