For marriage in Croatia, a standard Certificate de Coutume is required, along with Apostille stamps on the back of any foreign public documents. This means that the Certificate de Coutume will have to be Apostilled, as will your birth certificate (if you were born outside of Croatia).

In addition to the Certificate de Coutume, the Croatian authorities require a Letter of Validity of Marriage, to show that the proposed marriage will be valid under Irish law. Under normal circumstances, such a letter would be issued by the Irish government's representation in Croatia. However, we do not have any diplomatic representation in Croatia, so the Irish Embassy in Ljubljana must produce this letter.

When we receive your application, we will produce the Certificate de Coutume, and send it to Dublin for an Apostille stamp (along with your birth cert, if you were born in the Republic of Ireland). When the Apostilled Certificate de Coutume is returned to us from Dublin, we send a copy of it and your passport to the Irish Embassy in Ljubljana. They will produce the Letter of Validity of Marriage in Croatian and return it by post to the applicant. We then return the Certificate de Coutume and birth cert to you.

You are advised that the Certificate de Coutume will not be produced in Croatian, so you must arrange for the Certificate de Coutume (and your birth certificate) to be translated into Croatian before you present your documentation to the Croatian authorities. The Croatian Embassy in London should be able to provide a list of local translation agencies that they recognise as trusted translators.

Please note that we have had cases where the Irish citizen has had a solicitor based in the UK produce the Letter of Validity of Marriage, and have it translated into Croatian locally. If this is satifies the Croatian requirements, you may have the letter produced locally.

The cost is £48, if born in the Republic of Ireland - otherwise it is £32, as we will not be able to put an Apostille stamp on the LBC. There is an additional cost of £16 for the Letter of Validity of Marriage, if you chose to obtain this letter from us.

So for an Irish-born Irish citizen getting married in Croatia, who is getting the letter of validity of marriage from us, the total cost is £48 + £16 = £64.