U.S. Embassy paper distributer

So to be legally married in France you have to have an official ceremony in the town hall and of course to do this you need to submit a dossier. As part of the dossier they have requested two documents "Attestation de celibat" and "Certificat de coutume". Do these things exists in the States? No. Does the town hall want them anyways? Yes.

The solution to this is that the U.S. embassy provides two forms that you fill out with information (passport number, date of birth, etc.) and attesting to the fact that you lived in the states, you attend to marry someone in France, and that you have never been married before(or pac-ed even though this doesn't exist outside of France).

Afterwards you pay (50 dollars a pop) and swear before the Consular officer that what you say is true and he/she motorizes it.

What's the difference between the two forms? From what I can tell nothing except one form has your home address in the States plus name of your fiance and the other has your parent's information on it. Why couldn't they combine these two forms and save me 50 bucks? I don't know.

Anywho my first attempt at the embassy was a fail because I needed to know the city the bf was born in and I couldn't call him because they took my cell phone before entering the embassy (I was also already 2 hours into my lunch break at this time).

So I took the papers and came back a second time despite my 3pm meeting that sprang up last minute that morning thinking, I have all the information all I have to do is pay and swear right?

Yes except on this day there were many people including one who was blind and cut in line which I understand but will say took a painfully long time getting things done.

Which of course I understand but I was late to my meeting anyways (I should note here that at some point in this process they took my passport so I couldn't leave the embassy even if I wanted to).

But it's fine. Two attempts totaling five hours and 100 bucks for two pieces of paper with information that I myself provided. As my co worker stated if Antalis had that kind of margin selling paper we'd be rich.