Eloping to Seychelles: The Step by Step Guide, Including on Short Notice

A surprising share of the weddings we run start with a message like this one. We are already coming in March, could we get married while we are there? The answer is almost always yes, and the way it works is simpler than most couples expect. Here is the whole thing, step by step, for two people who want to come home married without telling anyone until afterwards.

Elopement here does not mean a compromise. It means the same legal ceremony, the same private cove, the same registrar and the same apostilled certificate as a wedding with forty guests, with the difference that the two of you are the only people on the sand who are not working. Around half of the couples we marry come alone. They are the ones who cry most at the vows and stay longest in the water afterwards, and the photographs from those afternoons are the ones we use to show what a Seychelles wedding looks like.

Why Seychelles is built for eloping

Three rules make it easy. First, there is no residency requirement, so you do not have to arrive early and wait. Second, the notice of marriage is published by the Civil Status Office for 11 days before the ceremony, and it is lodged from scanned documents, so the clock runs while you are still at home. Third, Seychelles is visa free for every nationality, with a visitor’s permit issued on arrival. Add a Supreme Court apostille on the certificate, accepted in around 130 countries, and you have a wedding that is legally complete before you fly home, with nothing to finish afterwards. Our guide to recognition in your country lists the small home step, if there is one.

Step by step, from the first message to the flight home

1. Step 1

   Lock the flights and the room first

   The ceremony can move around your dates. Peak season accommodation cannot. Book the trip, then tell us the dates and the island. Mahé gives the most registrar flexibility on short notice and it is where the private cove is, which is why around 95 in every 100 of our couples marry there. Praslin and La Digue are possible at €1,990 and €2,090 with a ferry and a second team.

2. Step 2

   Send your documents the same day

   Photograph your passports, your birth certificates with their apostilles, and if either of you has been married before the apostilled divorce decree or death certificate. Email them to us. Document checking is the only step that can genuinely sink a short timeline, usually because a birth certificate has no apostille yet or a decree needs a sworn translation. We reply within a day with anything that is missing. The documents guide lists what your nationality needs.

   

3. Step 3

   We lodge the notice of marriage

   Eleven days before your ceremony the Civil Status Office publishes the notice. You do nothing. If your timeline is shorter than that, a special licence can shorten the publication, which the office issues within about two days for SCR 500, and we will tell you honestly whether your dates allow it.

4. Step 4

   Land, settle, meet your coordinator

   Arrive two days before the wedding if you can. Hand over your original documents, meet the person who will run your afternoon, and if you have booked the stylist she does a trial. The rest of the day is the pool.

   

5. Step 5

   Marry on the sand at two

   Chauffeur at quarter past one, welcome drinks at the cove, shoes off, the walk to the gazebo, the registrar’s 20 minute ceremony with your own vows inside it, the rings from a coconut casket, two witnesses from our team signing beside you, cake and sparkling wine. Then two hours with the photographer while the light goes gold. The whole afternoon is in our hour by hour guide.

   

6. Step 6

   Certificate, apostille, and home

   The Civil Status Office issues your certificate the next working day and the Supreme Court apostilles it. Our standard is five working days, usually 48 to 72 hours, and we deliver it to your hotel, or courier it by DHL or FedEx if you fly first. You fly home with a document that is valid in around 130 countries and nothing left to sign. The certificate timeline explains each stamp.

What €1,645 buys for two people

The Mahé package was built for couples on their own, which is why it includes the two things an elopement usually has to pay extra for elsewhere, the witnesses and the transport. In full it covers the licensed registrar and the legal ceremony on the beach, the notice of marriage and every government fee, the marriage certificate and its Supreme Court apostille, a chauffeur driven car from your accommodation and back, the bamboo gazebo with fresh flowers, the reception table and Creole wedding chairs, a bridal bouquet and a groom’s pin, a customised cake, sparkling wine and cool drinks, welcome drinks on arrival, the coconut casket for your rings, two witnesses and a coordinator on the sand. The Mahé wedding page has the full list and the optional add ons.

The add on that eloping couples almost never skip is photography. With no guests there is nobody else holding a camera, and two hours of real photographs on that beach is the part of the day you keep. A local Mahé photographer is €550 for 80 or more edited images. Our professional photographer, working in English, German, French or Russian, is €850 for 270 to 300, around 160 for every hour photographed. A cinematic film starts at €1,290, includes cinematic drone footage that is otherwise €125, and is the thing couples send to the family they did not invite. The stylist, who comes to your room in the morning, is €230.

How short is too short

Two weeks is comfortable if your birth certificates already carry apostilles and neither of you has a previous marriage to document. Ten days is possible with the special licence. Less than that depends entirely on what is in your hands when you write to us, and we will say so plainly rather than take a deposit and hope. The document that most often decides it is the apostille on a birth certificate, which in most European countries takes one to three weeks to obtain, and the divorce decree, which takes longer. If you are reading this with a trip already booked, order the apostilles today and write to us the same afternoon.

Telling the people you did not invite

Most eloping couples plan the announcement more carefully than the wedding. The film is the usual answer, delivered a few weeks after you get home and watched by every parent on the same evening. A second, smaller answer is the set of thirty photographs we ask the photographer to prioritise for sharing, delivered within days. And the honest advice from years of watching this play out is to tell the closest people before you fly, not after. Nobody is upset about a beach. People are upset about being surprised.

The beach, when it is only the two of you

Privacy matters more to an eloping couple than to anyone, and it is the thing most operators cannot honestly promise, because every beach in Seychelles is public by law. The cove we use on Mahé is the exception, reached only through the private property behind it, with granite headlands closing both ends and a bathroom and changing area a few steps from the sand. On your afternoon nobody else is there. We wrote a full explanation in our guide to private beach weddings in Seychelles, including the five questions to ask anyone who promises you the same.