Source repository for thevowkit.com, a free reference for foreign couples marrying in Mexico. Static HTML, no JavaScript, no trackers, no email gate. Every factual claim on the site carries a link to the government source it came from and the date that source was checked.
Start here → thevowkit.com/start.html — four questions that route you to the page that answers your situation.
Written by Tyler Nielson, who works in destination weddings in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, and is natively bilingual. Corrections are welcome and wanted: open an issue, or email hello@thevowkit.com. If a cited link contradicts a page, the link is right and the page gets fixed.
| Page | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Symbolic vs civil vs religious | Which ceremony actually marries you, and which is theatre |
| State-by-state requirements | Quintana Roo, Baja California Sur, Jalisco, Nayarit — documents, witnesses, fees |
| Document expiry and timing | How long each paper stays valid, and why they can't all be started together |
| Apostille the acta de matrimonio | Making a Mexican marriage certificate usable back home: office, fee, turnaround |
| Divorced or widowed | What a previous marriage adds to the packet |
These are findings that came out of reading the statutes rather than other people's blog posts. Each is stated with its instrument so you can check it yourself — and each is sourced in full on the page linked beside it.
1. A symbolic ceremony does not marry you, and neither does a religious one. In Mexico only a civil marriage before the Registro Civil has legal effect. Beach ceremonies, officiant-led vow exchanges and church weddings are all legally inert on their own. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in destination weddings. → details
2. Quintana Roo's prenuptial blood test is gone — but counters were still asking for it. In Acción de Inconstitucionalidad 29/2024, resolved by the Pleno on 24 June 2025, the Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación invalidated portions of Arts. 383, 682 fr. II and 700 fr. IX of the Quintana Roo Código Civil requiring a prenuptial medical examination; Art. 682 fr. II was then derogated outright (POE 23 July 2026). Counter sheets published by Playa del Carmen and Cozumel still carried the requirement on documents dated before the repeal. → details
3. The post-divorce waiting period is dead in all four wedding states. Guides still repeat it. It has been repealed or struck down:
| State | Article | How it ended | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quintana Roo | CC Art. 702 (300 days, women only) | Derogated by the state Congress | POE 29 Feb 2016 |
| Nayarit | CC Art. 154 | Derogated by the state Congress | P.O. 19 Jul 2017 |
| Jalisco | CC Art. 270 (300 days, women only) | Derogated by the state Congress | P.O. 5 Sep 2015 |
| Jalisco | CC Art. 420 (1 year, both spouses) | Invalidated by the SCJN, Pleno, AI 113/2018 | 18 Jun 2020 |
| Baja California Sur | CC Art. 165 (300 days, women only) | Derogated — exact decree not located | Between 20 Mar 2022 and 10 May 2023 |
Surviving 300-day rules elsewhere in these codes are filiación presumptions about paternity, not bars on remarrying. → details
4. The apostille has to come from Mexico, and the counter is rarely where your wedding is. A US Secretary of State cannot apostille a Mexican document. Published state fees and offices, as cited by each state:
| State | Office city | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Jalisco | Guadalajara | MX$538.00 — Ley de Ingresos del Estado de Jalisco 2026, art. 26 fr. XI c) |
| Quintana Roo | Chetumal | banded "4 a 8 UMA(s)" in the state catalogue (≈ MX$938 at 8 UMA — our arithmetic, not the state's) |
| Baja California Sur | La Paz | MX$418.00, from a catalogue entry labelled fiscal year 2023 |
| Nayarit | Tepic | MX$354.00, cited to the Ley de Ingresos del Estado de Nayarit 2025, art. 14 fr. V |
Nayarit is the only one of the four we found allowing a carta poder so someone else can file for you. From San José del Cabo the BCS counter is a two-hour drive each way; from Puerto Vallarta the Jalisco counter is about five. → details
The clocks do not line up, which is why the packet cannot be assembled in one pass. The prenuptial laboratory analysis runs about 15 days where it is still required — and because it uses Mexican labs, it has to be done in Mexico, close to the date. Three of the four states require the ceremony within eight days of filing the solicitud. The apostille, by contrast, has no published service level in any of the four states, so it is the item to start first and the one most likely to end up handled after you have flown home — at higher cost. → full timing reference
The deployed site, served from the repository root. Plain HTML and one stylesheet — no build step,
no framework, no dependencies, no analytics. DEPLOY.md documents hosting.
Two paid kits exist and are sold on Etsy; they are described on thevowkit.com/kits.html, each with a section explaining who should not buy it. The five reference pages above are complete and free, and are not a teaser for them — if the free pages answer your question, you're done.
Sources are Mexican federal and state government sites (*.gob.mx), state Periódicos Oficiales,
SCJN resolutions, the HCCH, the US State Department and the Government of Canada. No blog is cited
anywhere on the site.
Mexican marriage law is state law — 32 civil codes — and municipal counters sometimes apply practice that differs from the current text of their own code, as finding #2 shows. Pages carry check dates for that reason. Verify anything load-bearing with the specific Registro Civil office you will file at, and if what they tell you differs from what is written here, please send it to hello@thevowkit.com — a fresh answer from a counter beats a citation, and the correction gets published.
This is a reference, not legal advice.