For Couples Who Live Abroad
You can marry legally on the same trip as your celebration: the Abu Dhabi court takes your application from anywhere in the world and needs you there only for the ceremony. Dubai is where you celebrate.
What Needs You in Person
Only the ceremony. You apply online before you fly.
Where the Marriage Becomes Legal
You may have read that a wedding in Dubai can only be symbolic, with the legal part done at home. For couples who live abroad, that is not the full picture. The Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court does not ask either of you to live in the UAE: you apply online from wherever you are and travel for the ceremony. So the first decision is where the marriage itself happens.
The legal ceremony at the Abu Dhabi court, the celebration in Dubai — one journey, and a UAE certificate to take home.
Your marriage is registered at home, before or after the trip; Dubai is where you celebrate it.
The Dubai ceremony is then symbolic: it celebrates your marriage but has no legal effect of its own.
Leaning towards the court in Abu Dhabi? How the Abu Dhabi court marries couples from abroad
Ras Al Khaimah, the other emirate where we arrange civil marriages, sets its own conditions on where the partners live. We confirm them for your case before you plan around it.
Is Dubai Right for You
It is when your families live in different countries, when you want warmth in the European winter, or when you want the legal marriage and the celebration on one trip. It is less so if your date falls in the summer. And if a UAE certificate adds nothing for you, marrying at home first is simpler. These are the situations that tend to decide it.
Dubai is a direct flight from much of Europe, Asia and North America. When one family lives in Europe and the other in Asia, it is often the easiest place for both to reach.
The months when Europe is at its coldest are the UAE’s warm, sunny winter — the season for a ceremony or a dinner outside.
The Abu Dhabi court takes your application before you travel and needs you in person only for the ceremony, which it keeps brief. The rest of the stay belongs to the celebration.
The Abu Dhabi court asks for no witnesses. Two passports and a complete file are all the ceremony itself needs, which is why the smallest weddings here can also be the simplest.
The Abu Dhabi certificate is issued in Arabic and English and attested for use abroad. Whether your country accepts it, and whether directly or only after its embassy has legalised it, is that country’s decision; we ask before you book.
A date between June and September means an indoor celebration, because the summer is hot and humid. And if a UAE certificate brings you nothing that a marriage at home would not, marrying at home first keeps it simple.
From Abroad, Step by Step
Across time zones: your nationalities, your date, your guest list, and the country where the certificate has to be accepted afterwards.
Passports and, if either of you was married before, proof of how that marriage ended — checked before anything is filed.
Filed with the Abu Dhabi court while you are still at home. The court confirms the date and time of your ceremony by email.
Venue, photographer, flowers: introduced from our network, chosen by you, and planned around the date the court has given.
Our own chauffeur can drive you from central Dubai to the court, about an hour and a half each way, and back to the evening.
Attested by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and sent on if you have already flown; legalised by your embassy where your country asks for it.
Dubai Wedding Packages
A venue’s wedding package in Dubai prices the evening, usually per guest and often with a minimum number of guests. It covers the room or the lawn, the menu, soft drinks, often a suite for the night and a coordinator for the event.
What a venue’s package does not include is the marriage itself.
On the route we arrange for couples from abroad, the civil ceremony takes place at the Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court, on a date the court confirms. Whichever venue you book for the evening, the legal file comes first.
What the package covers.
Space, menu and service for your guests, priced by the venue. Compare what each price per guest includes, not the headline figure.
What it does not.
The application, the court date and the certificate. We prepare the file with you and see it through the court.
Often booked separately.
Photographer, planner, florist. We introduce them from our network, and the choice is yours.
After the ceremony.
Attestation for use abroad and, where your country asks for it, legalisation by its embassy.
Season
The UAE government describes its own climate plainly: warm and sunny in winter, hot and humid in summer. For a ceremony or a dinner outside, we plan around the cooler months, roughly November to March; in the summer months, June to September, the celebration belongs indoors. Before you fix a date, check it against Ramadan, which is expected to begin in early February in 2027: working hours are shorter that month, and the court’s may change too.
Choosing the month for your UAE wedding
After the Wedding
A wedding abroad often leaves someone at home: a grandparent who could not travel, friends who could not take the week. An Edition gathers your photographs and your story into a printed book of 20, 40 or 60+ pages, made from the pictures you already have, for the people who were not there.
Your wedding, printed as an EditionFrequently Asked Questions
Send us where each of you lives, your nationalities, the month you have in mind and roughly how many guests. We tell you which route fits and what to book first.
Chat on WhatsApp
The Next Step
Tell us where you live and the month you have in mind. We reply within 48 hours with the route that fits and roughly when a court date could fall.
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