Expert: Sandra - 10/30/2010

Question
Dear Sandra,
Hope I can get this answer. I am Indonesian. I and my Brazilian fiance are planing to get marry. My fiance is living in Curitiba. We;ve planing to settle down in Curitiba after married. Do you know what the document required to do married in Brazil? And how is the procedure? Please advice. Thank you so much.

Answer
Hi Sofia. Congratulations !
Your fiance should go to the cartorio he plans to use for the marriage. Each is an independent business and may require slightly different documents. Have him get a list of those you must furnish and what he needs to provide. Each of your documents must be "recognized" as legally emit an official translator ted (i.e. not forgeries) by the Brazilian Consulate/Embassy that has jurisdiction over the place where they were emitted. Then they must be translated into Portuguese in Brazil by an official translator. There is an list of officially certified translators, but actually I don't know how the cartorio deals with the translation of documents in languages that are not as common as English, French, German or Spanish (if yours are in Bahasa, or Malay or Sundanese or whatever). When all the documents are brought to the cartorio and accepted, the cartorio appoints a day, probably about 30 days after the documents are received, to appear there to take part in a marriage ceremony (mostoften in a group). Since the process takes so long, you might want to speak to the Brazilian Consulate/Embassy with jurisdiction over your home about how you can draw up a procuracao for your fiance to use to act on your behalf in some of the matters included in this process.
Best wishes.