The most common complaint we found while researching this, in every language, was not that Seychelles weddings are expensive. It was that couples could not tell what any given price actually bought them. So we are going to start with the figures nobody controls, the ones the state sets, and work outwards from there.
What the state charges
These come from the Civil Status Office fee schedule. They are fixed, they are public, and they are the floor under any quote you receive from anyone.
| Official item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Marriage, both parties foreign, Mahe, Praslin or La Digue | SCR 3,000 |
| Marriage, both parties foreign, any other island | SCR 4,000 |
| Special marriage licence, to marry inside the 11 day banns | SCR 500 |
| Civil Status Officer travel, accommodation and meals, other islands | Charged on top, varies |
What that means in euro, roughly
Rupee to euro moves, so treat this as an order of magnitude rather than a quote. At the rates we have seen through 2026, 3,000 rupees lands somewhere close to 200 euro and the 500 rupee licence close to 35 euro. If a supplier tells you the government fee is many hundreds of euro, you now know enough to ask why.
The costs that sit outside anyone's package
These are yours to pay wherever you book, and they are the ones that quietly add up. None of them are Seychelles making money out of you. They are your own country's administration.
- Apostilles at home, one per document, per person, and the price varies enormously by country
- A sworn or certified translation of anything not in English or French
- The Seychelles Supreme Court apostille on your finished marriage certificate
- A Letter of Authentication from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where your country asks for one
- Embassy attestation, if you are registering the marriage in the UAE or the wider Gulf
- Courier, if you want the documents to follow you home rather than wait
How to read any quote you are given
Advertised prices in this market are not built the same way, which is why couples find them so hard to compare. Some quote a headline that covers the legal ceremony and little else. Others quote a loaded figure that already contains everything you would picture when you imagine the day.
The pattern couples describe most often is a base price that turns out to exclude the officiant, the flowers or the chairs. The number was true. It simply was not a wedding yet.
So load every quote before you weigh it up. Add the government fee. Add the special licence if your papers will be late. Then check, item by item, whether the officiant, the setup, the flowers, the witnesses and the certificate handling are inside the price or outside it. A quote that looks expensive and includes everything can easily be the cheaper day. We publish our inclusions in full so you can do exactly this arithmetic with ours.
The timing costs nobody mentions
Two of these are real money and both are avoidable. Ceremonies outside normal hours, meaning late weekday afternoons, weekends and public holidays, attract surcharges and depend on the registrar being free. And leaving your apostilles late can force the 500 rupee special licence, which is not a disaster but is a cost you did not need.