A Protestant wedding in Nice, Fra
 

Hello,<BR>Has anyone had any experience with renting a chapel or church in Nice, France or any nearby community for a wedding?<BR>We understand the paperwork involved just looking for a nice place to be wed other than a hotel reception room or private restaurant. We are not Catholic.<BR>Thanks,<BR>Pat

If you are talking about an actual legal marriage ceremony, that can only take place at the Mairie or Hotel de Ville in front of the mayor or one of his officials. Any religious rite has no legal standing and must take place after the civic ceremony. If you are already married by the law of your country before arriving in France, then you can have a ceremony solemnised by prior arrangement with the priest or minister of the church, including the rather splendid Holy Trinity Anglican Church with English-speaking chaplain. <BR>http://www.anglican-nice.com/<BR>If, however, you want to be married in France, one of you need to be a legal resident in the commune where the marriage is to place for a period of a several weeks if I remember, thus making it almost impossible for overseas visitors. Also you need to submit a whole series of documents, translated into French, well in advance of the date. Your embassy site in France usually has details of actual requirements.

I'm sorry I do understand the paper work involved we are looking for a chapel or church for a protestant wedding but.... thanks for the info anyway.<BR>Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

Pat, your apparent condescending attitude won't help your cause!

Sorry to take away from the original intent of the post, but I just had to reply to &quot;Just&quot;. I don't know how you can say Pat was condescending - she seemed very polite to me. Pat obviously has done her homework and is simply looking for a &quot;nice place to be wed&quot;. <BR><BR>Congratulations on your marriage, Pat and good luck!

I will comment that I agree with Just that Pat's second message is condesending and lazy. Alec's message is thorough and includes not only the name of a protestant church, it also includes a www-site. The site itself includes phone and fax numbers. I would suggest that Pat follow this lead.

I think you should forget it, but I don't really understand the point of a pretend wedding in a country where you aren't a resident. This will not be a legal ceremony in any way. I'm not sure you understand that if you don't have a civil legal wedding in France, you can't have a religious one, either, because you have to have the civil one first. So, you won't be getting wed at all.<BR><BR>However, there are some secular chapels in that area which will rent their space out for events, some are restored parts of older chateaux and now function as expensive hotels or something. I think the Chateau St Martin in Vence (part of Relais &amp; Chateaux hotel chain) has one, you could check with them. Also, there is the Chapelle St Pierre in Villefranche sur Mer which is a nonworking chapel which can be rented out for fantasy weddings. YOu might want to go through some international wedding service company to handle that, some deal with that chapel. Here's some info with a phone number on the chapel<BR>http://www.riviera.fr/vsmsaint.htm

You don't &quot;rent&quot; a church or other place of worship. Your wedding may be solemnised there, and there may be a fee to pay, but it churches are not rented out.