Getting married in Spain - help please!!!.

[WheresMyNormalTummyGone]

DP and I have been engaged for 5 years (together for 6). I am Catholic and under pressure to have a church wedding; he has a very domineering mother and is under pressure also to have a big family wedding. DS has DP's surname and I want us to be a unit and would love to get married, but literally want a low-key 20 minute registry jobby - no bells and whistles. Our best friends would love to witness and are going to Alicannte this year, so I had a brain wave, why not get married there - it would get respective families off our backs at least. Is this as straight forward as I want it to be? Can anyone talk me through getting married in Spain - can it be organised by late September. What do I need to do? very grateful for advice.

We are both British nationals.

Many thanks

Apologies for the poor punctuation

As you're both British it might be easier to do it in Gibraltar?

I think you can only get married in Spain if one of you is Spanish, they don't allow it otherwise. My sister looked into it last year.

Thanks Hippo and mumonthenet. Thought it sounded too good to be true in my head. Ruled out Gibralter as needed it to be convenient for friends to witness and that had to be near Alicante.

Back to the drawing board

this is copied from www.spainexpat.com

You can get married in Spain, even if neither of you are Spanish, but it?s complicated. Following is a list of documents that are normally requested:

◦Application form
◦Birth Certificate
◦Proof that both parties are free to marry
◦Divorce/Annulment Certificate of any previous marriages.
◦Certificate of Residence. If not a permanent resident in Spain, you can sign an affidavit before a Consular Officer indicating your place of residence for the last 6 years, as well as your temporary residence in Spain.
◦Posting of Banns (a public declaration of intent to marry)
◦Certificate of Consular Inscription
We received the following from a fellow expat about her marriage experience, offering advice to get started with any paperwork earlier than you might initially consider:

"You should add a note to your bit about marrying in Spain that you should start getting the paperwork done at least 6 months ahead of the wedding (even if your own consulate says you should wait) because of all the documents and official translations of documents you need. We started getting ours done 2 months ahead (on the advice of the British consulate) and very nearly had to cancel the wedding (cue tears in the registry office and lots of pulling hair out). Also that the requirements for foreigners getting married vary from province to province - Granada, for example, asks for additional paperwork from the consulate/embassy of the foreign national"