So my SO and I are getting married. This isn't news because we got engaged more than a year ago, though I wasn't part of this forum then. After spending the first year of our engagement having no precise idea of what the next step would be, I decided that I should go ahead, get hitched, and THEN speak to my parents about it. I've been putting things off for too long out of fear of confrontation and waiting isn't going to make it any easier. So here we go.

This post isn't about the joys of weddings and parties. It's actually about the mountain of bureaucracy I have to climb before I get to say "I do" (which, apparently, is "Tahdon" in Finnish). After researching the subject and asking the maistraatti (registrar's office) we found out that since Algeria (the country I'm from) does not have a diplomatic representation in Finland, the process would be different from the one people of other nationalities would go through. Say you are an American citizen and want to marry a Finn. All you have to do is fly there, go to the US embassy in Helsinki and ask for a certificate of non-impediment. With that in hand, you go to the maistraatti, apply for a marriage license, wait seven days and voilà.

But I'm not an American citizen. Since there is no way for me to get a certificate of non-impediment unless I decide to fly (or sail) to Stockholm (where the closest Algerian embassy is) which would be both money and time-consuming, I have to do everything here. I have to provide a birth certificate (which I imagine would prove that I'm not his sister, mother or daughter) and a marital status certificate saying I'm not currently married. I would have to get those documents certified at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then finally at the Finnish embassy in Algiers. After that it's just a matter of shipping them to Finland to get them translated into English or Finnish by an official translator. Sounds somewhat simple, doesn't it?

Well, it's not. For starters, I had to go all the way to my place of birth's municipal hall to get my birth certificate in French, with the "Valid abroad" stamp on it, which is fine. Then to get the marital status certificate I had to get two male witnesses (can't bring female witnesses as their testimony is equal to half that of a male, as per the religion of state) to come with me. And that makes me wonder: how valid is a certificate where you write down that it's done in faith of the testimony of people who could be complete strangers? (They didn't check their relationship to me; they were actually just two coworkers) There are no real records of who marries who, unless you check with municipal hall where the marriage was contracted. So basically, my sister could just go to a random municipal hall and bring two dudes who'll testify for her, and she'd get a certificate stating she's never been married, even though she is (with one child). I can't help but be worried that it won't be credible as far as the Finnish authorities are concerned. But hey, that's what they asked me to provide, and that's how things are done here.

Anyway, the next step would be going to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get those documents certified. Nuh-uh. Went there this morning and was literally stopped at the door by a gentleman explaining (after checking my documents) that those needed to be first stamped at the administrative district (basically a bigger scale municipal hall, the place where you get your passport and driving license done, for instance). Okay. I expected things not to go smoothly, because I know what public administration is like. I was told to go to the AD where I was born. Yay. Two hours bus ride. At that point I had to call work and tell them I wasn't coming till the afternoon. I'm glad I had my sister with me the whole time to cheer me up. Anyway, once there, I had to stand at the counter for 30 minutes because the guy who takes care of certifications wasn't there. Well, he WAS there, but I didn't know it was him, and he kept walking around and past his work post, but he didn't pay the people standing there any mind. When he finally did, he took the papers and we waited another 30 minutes, after which he told me that the birth certificate would go through soon, but the marital status paper could not be certified there, because I had it done at the municipal hall near where I resided, and so I had to go to the AD... near where I resided. It didn't come as much of a surprise, but it should be. I mean, it's mind-boggling. Okay. At this point it was too late to go to the other AD. And it did take him a good 20 minutes to hand me back my birth certificate with the right stamps, even though I saw him running around with it in his hands all this time. So I had to go back to work.

The plan now is to go to the AD near my residence next Tuesday or Wednesday and hopefully get the certification done quickly. After which, the Ministry of Foreign affairs shouldn't be too much of an issue. But I am considering all the things that could go wrong (mainly that I will be asked to get the status certificate from my birth municipality, because why the fuck not, and that would mean bringing two witnesses all over again, and then back to the place I went to today).

Hopefully, when all this will be done, all I'll have to do is call up the Finnish embassy and ask them what sort of bullshit I can expect. Like specific reception hours, weird methods of payment, etc. (oh yeah, it costs 30 euros for each document, which just happens to be about 20% of an average salary in Algeria). Once that is done, I can UPS that shiz to my darling and let him deal with the translation and the form-filling.

If everything goes as planned, we will show up at the maistraatti the day after I fly in, apply and hope they don't confiscate my passport or something like that, because should they take more than the seven days they said they would, we wouldn't be able to go to Germany. I tried to give us some leeway and we're leaving for Frankfurt on the 10th day following the application. So we'll see.

Oh, and after that, when (if) we get the marriage license, we will still have to book an appointment for the marriage civil ceremony, and we could be told that there is no spot for us until after I go back home. Which means I'll have to travel again to Finland to get married, which isn't so bad, except for the financial aspect of things (even though SO and I split tickets costs). But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there. After all the marriage license is valid for four months. Or so they say.

I’m so tired. And happy that my employers are taking us this weekend on a company retreat thing to a nice little hotel by the sea, in a city 300km away from where I live. Haven’t gone swimming in the sea in more than a year (and even then it was in Finland so it doesn’t count since their sea is just a huge lake). That will be nice.