Ask the internet which country is easiest to legally elope in and most answers land on Denmark. Denmark is genuinely good at this, and for couples carrying awkward documents it is still the right call. It is not the answer for two people who want the legal ceremony itself to happen on a beach at first light, four days after landing.
The question splits into three, and almost nobody separates them: the wait between filing and marrying, the volume of paperwork the state wants, and who is legally allowed to marry you in a place you chose yourself. A country can be generous on one of those and stubborn on the other two. New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs issues the license three working days after the Notice of Intended Marriage goes in. Cyprus asks for fifteen days from the moment you sign the notice at the municipality, unless you apply to the Minister of the Interior for a special license.
We plan, photograph and film elopements in all five countries below, so this ranking runs on the paperwork we track for couples rather than on which coastline looks best in October. We have opinions about that too, and they land in a different order.
New Zealand is the easiest country to legally marry in
New Zealand. There is no residency requirement, the Notice of Intended Marriage goes in online, the license is issued three working days later for NZ$150, it stays valid three months, and a registered celebrant can marry you almost anywhere. For couples flying from the United States, Iceland and Cyprus are the closest equivalents.
The five, compared on the decisions that matter on the legal side
One number per column, from the office that governs the answer. Fees move, so treat them as current rather than permanent, and note that the wait is not the same animal in each country. In Scotland it is a statutory notice period you can sit out at home. In Denmark it is processing time at a national agency.
| Country | Wait after filing | Residency | Official cost of the legal step | Who marries you | Strongest for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand | Three working days | None | NZ$150 license | Registered celebrant, place of your choosing | Speed and freedom of setting |
| Iceland | No notice period; document processing sets the date | None | Translations and certified documents | District commissioner, or a certified religious or life stance celebrant | A legal ceremony outdoors, close to a US red-eye |
| Cyprus | Fifteen days standard, around three days on a special license | None | Notice of marriage, currently 128.15 euros in Lakatamia | Municipal marriage officer | Short trips with a fixed return flight |
| Denmark | Processing at the Agency of Family Law; certificate then valid four months | None for the ceremony | DKK 2,100 state fee, adjusted annually | Municipal officiant | Documents from two different systems |
| Scotland | 29 days minimum notice, filed up to three months ahead | None | Notice fee set locally, currently 45 pounds per person in Dumfries and Galloway | Registrar, or a religious or belief celebrant | Planning far out, marrying on a hillside |
Our own coverage is priced by the shape of the day rather than the country, one full day with a dedicated photographer or filmmaker from $4,900 and one full day with a photographer and filmmaker working together from $7,900, with team travel included worldwide and the rest set out on the pricing page.
Where each of the five earns its place
New Zealand: the fewest moving parts
The Notice of Intended Marriage is filed with the Department of Internal Affairs, the license follows three working days later, and it holds good for three months. No residency, no citizenship test, no in-country appointment before the ceremony. A registered celebrant can marry you on a lake jetty, at the end of a farm track, or on a saddle you walked up that morning, and no government office has to approve the view.
Two practical notes. If you sign the statutory declaration while you are still outside New Zealand, the signature needs an authorized official as witness, which is why we put that step into the timeline eight to ten weeks out rather than the week before. The place is named on the license, so when a forecast moves us to the other side of a range, the issuing office hears about it instead of the change being improvised at breakfast.
The real cost of New Zealand is the flight. From North America it is the longest journey on this list, and the morning after that flight is not the morning you want to be exchanging vows on camera. We build in a full day on the ground first, every time.
Denmark: the country that forgives complicated paperwork
Denmark’s reputation is earned, and it is a reputation for tolerance rather than for speed. You apply to the Agency of Family Law, Familieretshuset, for a certificate of marital status through a digital application, and you pay one state fee that the responsible minister adjusts each year and which currently sits at DKK 2,100. Whether the Agency or a municipality handles your case depends on both nationalities and on the basis of any residence in Denmark, which is the first thing to establish rather than the last.
Once issued, that certificate is valid for no more than four months. Miss the window and you resubmit the documents and pay the fee again, which is the most common way a Danish plan comes apart. Both of you must be 18 or over and unmarried on the day, an earlier marriage has to be legally dissolved first, and documents from certain countries have to be legalized or carry an apostille.
So Denmark is where we steer couples holding paperwork from two different systems, or documents that need an apostille chain before any other country will look at them. The trade is the setting. A municipal officiant conducts the ceremony, and the process bends further than the location does.
Cyprus: the answer for a short trip
You apply in person at the Office of Marriages in the municipality where you intend to marry. The standard route is a notice of marriage, currently 128.15 euros in Lakatamia, then a fifteen day wait, with the ceremony to follow inside three months of signing. The fast route is a special license from the Minister of the Interior, which brings it down to around three days, and at municipal level a special license can be solemnized on the same day the notice is signed where the marriage officer accepts the reason for it. Bring passports, proof that any earlier marriage has ended, and confirmation from the competent authority at home that you are free to marry.
Now the part a brochure will not tell you. In July and August the good stretches of Cypriot coast are busy from mid-morning until evening, and midday sun there is flat and unkind on skin and on a white dress. We shoot the first two hours of the day and the last two, and use the middle for driving and lunch. Late April, May and October hand you the same sea with a softer sun and a fraction of the people. If your dates are locked to high summer, say so in your first message and we will build the day around a 5am start rather than pretend the middle of it works.
Iceland: where the legal words can happen outside
Iceland runs two officiant routes and both are useful. District commissioners and their legally trained representatives perform civil ceremonies. Ceremonies that are neither ecclesiastical nor civil are performed by leaders of registered religious organizations and life stance organizations, or by people acting on their behalf, each of whom has been certified by the district commissioner. That second route is the reason so many legally binding Icelandic ceremonies happen on a lava field with nobody else in sight.
The document that sets your timeline is the certificate of marital status, which cannot be more than twelve weeks old when it is submitted. If your country does not issue such a certificate, you bring certified confirmation from the relevant authority saying so. One boundary is worth knowing before you plan a two-country trip: an Icelandic officiant’s authority to solemnize runs inside Iceland only, unless the Ministry of Justice has specifically certified otherwise, so a Reykjavik ceremony and a Norwegian glacier need two separate legal plans.
Scotland: 29 days, and the belief ceremony
Both of you file a marriage notice, form M10, with the registrar for the district where the ceremony will take place. The earliest you can file is three months before the date, the latest is 29 days before it, and Edinburgh asks for notices six to eight weeks ahead so there is room to fix a document. Notice fees are set locally, currently 45 pounds per person in Dumfries and Galloway, and councils are open that fees can rise during the year, so we confirm the figure with the district rather than repeat last season’s.
You do not need to be resident in Scotland to marry there. Birth certificates go in as originals with certified translations where needed, and depending on where you have been living, a Certificate of No Impediment from your home country may be asked for as well. Scots law treats civil, religious and belief marriages as three distinct categories, and it is the belief and religious route that couples use when the ceremony is happening on a ridge above a loch rather than in a registration office. Our destination guides go deeper on where those hours work best across a Scottish week.
The three things that actually decide it
How many days you are in the country before the ceremony. This settles more of these decisions than anything else. Cyprus on the standard notice wants fifteen days, which no ten day trip absorbs, and the special license exists precisely because of that. Scotland’s 29 days sounds worse and is easier, because you file from your kitchen table months out and arrive with the notice already sitting with the registrar. New Zealand’s three working days is the only one on this list that can absorb a change of plan made after you land.
Whether your documents travel well. Two passports from two countries, an earlier marriage to evidence, a birth certificate that needs an apostille chain. Some governments issue a freedom-to-marry document for their citizens, variously called a Civil Letter of Freedom, a certificat de coutume or a nulla osta, and where yours does not, Iceland accepts certified confirmation of that instead. Recognition at home then rests on registration abroad. Ireland, for one, recognizes a marriage performed elsewhere only where it has been entered on the civil register of the country where the ceremony took place and every local formality was followed, and most recognition rules take that shape.
Who is allowed to marry you, and where they are allowed to stand. This is the difference between a legal ceremony we film and a legal formality we photograph an hour earlier. In New Zealand and Iceland the binding words can be said in the place you chose for their own sake. In Denmark and Cyprus a municipal officiant is in the picture, which shapes the morning around a room and an appointment time. Neither is worse. They are different days, and it is worth knowing which one you are buying flights for. Our planning fundamentals walk through the rest of that sequence.
The route almost nobody weighs: sign at home, marry in the landscape
There is a sixth option that appears in no ranking, and for a good share of the couples who write to us it is the correct one. You complete the legal marriage at home before you fly. No notice period abroad, no translations, no certificate with a twelve week shelf life, no municipal appointment sitting in the best light of the trip. The day abroad is then built entirely around weather, tide and the hour the road empties, and the words are the ones you wrote.
What you give up is the place name on the certificate. For some couples that line matters enormously, and they should marry abroad and accept the notice period that comes with it. For others the certificate is admin and the ceremony is the event, and they are visibly lighter for having separated the two.
The two shapes look different in finished work, and that is the honest way to choose between them. A district commissioner signing on black sand gives you documents, witnesses and the small serious pause that comes with legal words. A paperwork-free morning gives you an unbroken hour and vows nobody had to standardize. Both are in our elopement stories and films, and ten minutes there will tell you more about which one is yours than another paragraph from us. Highlights reach you five days after the day itself, and the full gallery or film three weeks after.
If you already know which of the two you want, send it over with your month and your rough dates and we will come back with the legal route that fits it. Send Us a Message.
Which of these fits the trip you are taking
- Ten days or more and happy to fly a long way. New Zealand, with a rest day before the ceremony day and the license already issued when you land.
- Five or six days total, legal ceremony has to happen on the trip. Cyprus on the special license route, shoulder season, early mornings.
- Flying from the US east coast and you want the binding words said outdoors. Iceland, with the certificate of marital status ordered inside its twelve week window.
- Booking nine to twelve months out and comfortable filing paperwork from home. Scotland, notices in six to eight weeks before the date at the latest.
- Two nationalities, an earlier marriage, or documents that need an apostille. Denmark, and start with which office handles your case.
- Unwilling to spend any part of the trip in a government office. Sign at home first, then two to seven days of photography and film across one or several destinations on an Odyssey we shape to the route.
None of these are personality types. They are calendars, flight lengths and document folders. Tell us which line you are standing on and we will say honestly whether your month suits the country you picked, or whether one four hours further west suits it better.
Common questions
Which country has the shortest wait between filing and getting married?
New Zealand, at three working days from the Notice of Intended Marriage. Cyprus can come close through a special license from the Minister of the Interior, and a municipality can solemnize on the same day the notice is signed where the marriage officer accepts the reason. Iceland sets no notice period at all, so document processing decides your date.
Do we have to prove we are free to marry?
In most of these countries, yes, in one form or another. Cyprus asks for confirmation from the competent authority in your own country. Iceland wants a certificate of marital status no more than twelve weeks old, and accepts certified confirmation that your country does not issue one. Scotland may ask for a Certificate of No Impediment depending on where you have been living.
How early do we file for a Scottish elopement?
Notices can go in three months before the date at the earliest and 29 days before at the latest. Edinburgh recommends six to eight weeks ahead, which leaves room to correct a document, and we build the planning calendar backwards from that date rather than from the wedding day.
Does the legal ceremony have to happen indoors?
Not in New Zealand, where a registered celebrant marries you in the place you choose, and not in Iceland, where certified leaders of registered religious and life stance organizations solemnize alongside district commissioners. In Denmark and Cyprus a municipal officiant conducts the ceremony, so the legal moment is tied to an appointment.
Can we marry legally in one country and photograph in another?
Yes, and it is a common shape for a longer trip. Note the limit in Iceland, where an officiant’s authority to solemnize runs inside Iceland only unless the Ministry of Justice has certified otherwise, so a second country needs its own legal plan. Multi-country routes run as an Odyssey, two to seven days with a custom proposal.
Do you handle the marriage paperwork for us?
We do the location design, the permit research, the logistics guidance and a timeline built around the notice period, and we tell you what has to be filed by when. Government, venue and landowner permit fees and the license fee itself are paid by you, and the marriage is registered by your celebrant, officiant or registrar.
Tell us the constraint and we will build the route
We are eight, four photographers and four filmmakers, currently booking 2027, 2028 and 2029, and team travel to every one of these countries is inside the fee rather than added to it. The single most useful thing in a first message is the constraint: the days you have, the month you cannot move, and whether the legal ceremony has to happen on the trip. Everything after that happens in writing. You send the form, we reply with the brochure inside 24 hours, a tailored proposal follows, and planning begins when the contract is signed and the 30 percent retainer is paid. Check Your Date.