This page exists because no Spanish-language wedding site answers the questions Spanish couples actually have, and because the delay at the other end is long enough to matter to real life.
What Seychelles asks you for
The Seychelles half is the same for everyone. Two foreign nationals need a valid passport and an apostilled birth certificate each, plus an apostilled divorce certificate if either has been married before or a death certificate if widowed. The banns run for eleven days. The government fee is SCR 3,000 on Mahe, Praslin or La Digue. Two witnesses must be present and we provide them. The certificate is issued within twenty four hours of the ceremony.
Why registering in Spain is not optional
Until the marriage is registered, Spain continues to record you as single. That is not a technicality. It affects inheritance, survivor benefits, tax treatment and anything that depends on civil status, and it will be the first thing that trips you up in an emergency.
Either spouse may apply as long as at least one of you is Spanish. If neither of you is, registration in Spain is not available, and the marriage is still perfectly valid.
What the Registro Civil wants
The Seychelles marriage certificate carrying the apostille of the Seychelles Supreme Court, and a traduccion jurada into Spanish by a sworn translator. Registration itself is free and produces the certificado literal de matrimonio and the Libro de Familia.
The complaint we found everywhere is the wait. The Registro Civil Central can take more than a year. Nothing about that is your fault and nothing speeds it up except starting immediately with a complete file.
The property regime, which decides itself if you let it
The matrimonial economic regime is recorded alongside the marriage. Absent capitulaciones matrimoniales agreed before a notary, the default supletorio regime under the applicable law applies to you, which for most couples means the sociedad de gananciales.
This is the same trap Italian and French couples fall into and it is worth ten minutes of thought before the wedding rather than a notary's bill afterwards. If the regime matters to you at all, speak to a Spanish notary before you fly.
An open point we will not guess at
Spain has no resident embassy in Seychelles, so the competent consular post for couples resident abroad has to be confirmed rather than assumed. We are checking which demarcation covers Seychelles and will publish it here with the date. If you are resident in Spain this does not affect you, because you register at your own Registro Civil on return.