The document that fixes your Romanian wedding date is not the apostille on your birth certificate. It is a single page signed by a doctor in the town where you are marrying, and it is valid for fourteen calendar days.
Everything else in the file can be assembled slowly from a kitchen table at home: certified copies, apostilles from a Secretary of State, evidence that neither of you is already married. Then you land in Romania and two short clocks start running together. The prenuptial medical certificate lives fourteen days. The Civil Code requires the marriage to be concluded after ten days from the posting of your marriage declaration, counting both the posting day and the wedding day inside that ten. Once you can see how those two overlap, the trip more or less plans itself.
We plan and document wedding days; we do not give legal advice. For your own Romania case, let the relevant authority or consulate confirm the final requirements.
Ten days posted, fourteen days of medical validity
Yes, foreign citizens marry in Romania. US public documents need an apostille at home and a Romanian translation once you arrive. You file the marriage declaration in person at the town hall, wait the ten days the Civil Code requires, and marry inside the fourteen-day life of your Romanian medical certificate. Allow two weeks.
Where the Romanian document file slows down
Nothing in this chain is exotic. Every link is an ordinary counter, an ordinary stamp, an ordinary translation. The difficulty is arithmetic, not bureaucracy, and it sits in two places.
The first is American. There is no national certificate of single status in the United States, and the US Embassy in Bucharest says so plainly: it cannot make an official certification about the marital status or eligibility to marry of people living in the US. Instead you go to your own state or county for a No Record of Marriage Certificate, a Letter of Single Status or a Certificate of Non-Impediment, which may come from a state office of vital statistics or from a county clerk, court or registrar depending on where you live. Working out which of those three your county actually issues is an email-length question, and worth asking early rather than in July.
The second is Romanian, and it is the reason this article exists. The medical certificate is issued in Romania, near the town where you marry, and it does not travel from home. The ten-day posting term cannot start until you have both signed the declaration in person. So the paperwork you can do from an armchair is the easy half, and the half that decides your dates all happens in the last fortnight, in one country, in a fixed order.
Our honest rating: fiddly, entirely doable, and worth committing to properly or not at all. If a two-week stay does not fit the leave you have, the ceremony-only route further down this page is a genuinely good answer rather than a fallback, and our guide to planning an elopement works through both shapes.
From apostille to translation: the Romanian sequence
Order matters here, because two items expire and one of them expires fast. Collect from the top.
- A certified copy of each birth certificate, from the state that issued it. Order two while you are there.
- An apostille on each birth certificate. The embassy is direct about this: every public document issued in the US must be authenticated for use in Romania with an apostille, affixed by the competent authority, which is generally the office of the Secretary of State in the state that issued the document.
- Evidence of single status, from your state vital records office or your county, then apostilled the same way.
- Proof that any earlier marriage has ended, as an original or certified copy, apostilled, and later translated into Romanian.
- Passports, valid well beyond the trip, plus photocopies of the photo page for the file.
- Romanian translations. The embassy’s own guidance points US citizens to a Romanian notary public’s office for the Romanian translation of the birth certificate, so plan the translations for after you land unless the office handling your file tells you otherwise.
- The prenuptial medical certificate, obtained in Romania from a clinic or family doctor in the town where the marriage will take place. It runs on blood work, it must state expressly that the person may marry, and it is valid for fourteen calendar days from issue. This is the item that sets your dates.
- The marriage declaration, signed in person by both of you at the town hall where you will marry. An extract goes up on the board with the posting date, your civil status details and a notice that anyone may raise an objection within ten days.
- Two witnesses on the day, adults, with photo identification.
- An apostille on the Romanian marriage certificate, once you have it, so the certificate works when you get home.
That last one is quicker than couples expect. Apostilles on Romanian civil status certificates, marriage certificates included, are issued by the Instituția Prefectului, the county prefect’s office, and as a rule they are issued the same day, although verification can occasionally add time.
Work backwards through the Romanian apostille and medical windows
Two numbers govern everything. The marriage is concluded after ten days from the posting of the declaration, with the posting day and the wedding day both counted inside the term. And if the marriage is not concluded within thirty days of that posting, the declaration lapses and a new one has to be filed and published. So the window in which you can actually marry is the back end of that thirty days, not an open season.
| When | What happens | Why it will not move |
|---|---|---|
| Four to six months out | Certified copies ordered, apostilles requested, town hall chosen and asked for its own document list | State apostille offices work at their own speed, and the list varies by office |
| Two months out | Single status document issued and apostilled, ceremony date discussed with the civil status office | Issued late on purpose, so it is fresh when it reaches the counter |
| Three weeks out | Translator and interpreter arranged, travel booked with the whole term inside it | Both the declaration and the ceremony are conducted in Romanian |
| Day one on the ground | Blood work and the family doctor, medical certificate issued | Fourteen-day validity starts here |
| Day one or two | Declaration signed in person by both of you, extract posted | Ten-day term starts on the posting day |
| Day ten onward | Ceremony, two witnesses, certificate issued | Must sit after the ten days and inside the medical certificate’s fourteen |
| The following working day | Marriage certificate apostilled at the prefect’s office | Usually same day at the counter, but it needs a working day to exist in |
The real minimum on the ground is around eleven days. The comfortable minimum is fourteen, and fourteen is what we plan to, because it leaves room for a clinic that is closed on the afternoon you arrive and for a weather day at the location itself. The Civil Code does allow the mayor of the locality where the marriage takes place to approve a marriage before the ten days are up, for well-founded reasons. It is a discretionary approval, decided locally, and not something to build a trip around.
Details the counter will not remind you about
These are the things that quietly rearrange a timeline. None of them are hard once you know they exist.
- The medical certificate does not travel. It comes from a doctor in Romania, in the town where you are marrying, and a physical from home will not substitute for it.
- Both of those ten days are counted. Posting day and wedding day sit inside the term, so a Monday posting is not the same as a Monday evening posting.
- Thirty days is a ceiling, not a runway. You cannot file the declaration on a spring scouting trip and come back in September. If the marriage has not been concluded inside thirty days of the posting, the declaration goes in again.
- The declaration is signed in person. Both of you, at the counter, on the same visit. Nobody signs it for you.
- The surname decision happens then, not later. Which name each of you carries after the marriage is settled in the declaration and printed on the certificate.
- A foreign divorce and a Romanian first marriage need a court step. If the earlier marriage took place in Romania and the divorce decree came from another country, that decree may need recognition through a Romanian court before you can marry again, and the embassy’s advice is to take that one to a Romanian attorney rather than to a counter.
- Ask the office for its hours and its officiating days. Counter hours for filing and the days on which ceremonies are actually performed are two different lists, set locally.
- Bring spares. Two certified copies of each vital record, each apostilled, costs very little at home and solves a great deal in Romania.
Deadlines and local fees quoted here were correct at the time of writing and are worth re-checking with the office that issues them. The Romanian side of the spend is small and paid in lei: the translations, the notary, the blood work and the doctor’s certificate.
Sign at home, then keep the Romanian mountains for the ceremony
A large share of the couples we photograph in Romania sign at a courthouse or a county office at home, in ordinary clothes, weeks before they fly. Then they stand on a ridge in the Făgăraș or in a beech forest in Maramureș and say the words that actually matter to them, to each other, with nobody holding a clipboard.
What changes: no medical certificate, no ten-day posting, no translations for the file, no thirty-day ceiling on your travel dates. The ceremony hour is chosen for the light instead of for a slot on an official calendar, which in the Carpathians in summer means starting before five in the morning and finishing long after dinner. You can be in the country for four days instead of fourteen.
What does not change: the vows, the witnesses if you want them there, the celebrant if you want one, the walk in, the reading, the first ten minutes afterwards when neither of you can speak properly. On film and in a gallery, the two routes are indistinguishable, and you can see how both look in the stories we have published.
This route also matters for same-sex couples, because Romanian civil marriage is not available to you here. The legal marriage happens at home, the day in the mountains is exactly the day you wanted, and we plan it the same way we plan any other. Tell us where you want to be standing and we will build the day around it, or tell you honestly which month and which region fit what you have described.
Where that day happens is worth as much thought as the file. The high passes open late and close early, and the dates are announced each year rather than fixed, so we build May and early June days on low ground in the Apuseni, in Bucovina or along the Danube Delta channels, and save the alpine ridgelines for July through September. Our destination elopement guides go region by region.
Our planning role versus your Romanian document file
Filing paperwork is not ours to do and legal advice is not ours to give. What we do is everything around them. We hold your date against the office’s own officiating days, design the location and the timeline around real travel time and real light, research the permits your locations need and tell you which authority to write to, and hold a weather alternative for every outdoor hour of the day. Permit fees, the celebrant, accommodation and anything unusual on wheels or rotors stay on your side of the line.
The ceremony hour is the one thing you rarely control. An office gives you a slot, and that slot is often the flattest light of the day. That is where having a photographer and a filmmaker from the same team in the room earns its place: two cameras, two angles, one plan agreed the night before, and nobody asking a civil status officer to repeat a sentence for a second take. Audio for the vows is part of the two-person coverage where conditions allow.
Team travel to Romania is included in every experience we offer, with no long-haul distinction and no surcharge for the drive up a valley; what each experience includes is set out on our pricing page. Highlights reach you five days after the wedding. The full gallery or film follows three weeks later.
Tell Us Your Story and we will come back with the shape of the day, the offices involved, and what your fortnight would actually look like.
Common questions
Which town hall handles our marriage in Romania?
The civil status office of the place where the marriage will be held. That office publishes its own document list, and the US Embassy in Bucharest tells couples to obtain the complete list of documents from the local city hall. Settle which office you are dealing with before you book anything else, because the list, the hours and the officiating days all come from it.
Does our US birth certificate need an apostille for Romania?
Yes. Every public document issued in the United States has to be authenticated for use in Romania with an apostille, and the competent authority is generally the office of the Secretary of State in the state that issued the document. Order the certified copy first, then send it for the apostille.
Can we get our documents translated into Romanian before we fly?
The embassy’s guidance sends US citizens to a Romanian notary public’s office for the Romanian translation, so plan for the translation to be done in Romania. Ask the office handling your file what it accepts before you pay a translator at home.
How long do we have to stay in Romania to get married there?
Around eleven days at the absolute minimum, and we plan for fourteen. The medical certificate has to be issued in Romania and lasts fourteen calendar days, and the marriage cannot be concluded until ten days after the declaration is posted, counting the posting day and the wedding day.
What is the prenuptial medical certificate and where do we get it?
It is a certificate from a doctor, based on blood work, confirming expressly that the person may marry. You obtain it in the Romanian city or town where the marriage will take place, and it is valid for fourteen calendar days from the date it is issued.
Can the ten-day wait be shortened?
Sometimes. The mayor of the municipality, sector, town or commune where the marriage is to take place may approve a marriage before the ten-day term expires, for well-founded reasons. It is granted case by case at local discretion, so treat it as a bonus rather than a plan.
Will our Romanian marriage certificate work back in the United States?
Have the certificate apostilled at the Instituția Prefectului in the county where it was issued, usually a same-day counter job, and carry a translation for whichever agency asks. There is no central marriage register in the United States, so there is no federal office to file it with.
One of us is divorced. What extra paperwork does Romania want?
Proof that the previous marriage ended, as an original or certified copy, apostilled and translated into Romanian. If that marriage took place in Romania and the divorce decree was issued in another country, the decree may first need recognition through a Romanian court, and the embassy’s advice is to put that step in the hands of a Romanian attorney.
Pick the valley first, then the paperwork
Couples who enjoy this process are the ones who choose the place first and let the file organize itself around it. A ridge above Bâlea, or a stretch of Delta water at dawn: pick the landscape, and the office, the ten days and the fourteen days fall into an order that works.
Dates are currently open across 2027, 2028 and 2029, and everything with us happens in writing, at whatever hour suits you. Send the inquiry form and you will have a reply and our brochure within twenty-four hours, then a tailored proposal; a signed contract and a thirty percent retainer start the planning. Start Your Story and tell us the month you are thinking about.