Norwegian living with Italian in France. Already complicated - then try to get married in Italy and you'll have a laugh!!
I've sent my mum around to pick up my already translated to Italian "Is-Single-Can-Get-Married " declaration from the super efficient Norwegian government offices. For it to be valid though, the Notarius Publicus (head of the local police station) had to validate that the person that issued it was in fact the person she pretended to be. Then my kind mother had to take it to another office that put a huge stamp on it saying that the Kingdom of Norway agrees that Signorina Astrid is free to get married.
The document has all my personal details like date of birth, no kids, is single, address etc etc.
So far so good.
Until we talked to the rudest person ever in the Italian consulate in Marseille! They didn't approve the official document from Norway because it had to come from the Norwegian consulate in Italy. Then the consulate lady said : THOSE NORDIC PEOPLE ARE SO INEFFICIENT, POOR THEM...
I was close to exploding - what poor us??? Tell me what offices in Italy or in France you have the choice of getting your birth certificate or any other docs in whatever language you want?!! Yes, they translate them directly and for free! Not only, where could you get them sent to you within a week with express mail and them paying for it??!

Then they wanted a birth certificate (a recent one - because of course my date of birth might change if the certificate was issued a year ago right?)
Then they wanted another certificate saying I'm single. This is the point when I cracked! What on earth would you need the Marriage Certificate whose only scope is to state I'm single???
SCREAM...
Today at 10 am the Norwegian consulate in Milan said they don't issue any official documents and that the Italian consulate in Marseille is incompetent. Or in their words : is not aware of the new rules which came into force in 2004 (it's only 3 years ago so not enough time to learn them, right?!)
SIGH...
I will now call the local offices in Norway to give me a new Birth Certificate and a Civil Status document because I have no choice but to do as the Italian Consulate says. After all, without them processing our documents we will not get our "Publicazioni" and we will not be married in May.
UPDATE:
They're sending me everything straight away - should have them by Thursday. And the Norwegian consulate in Milan will send me the documentation stating that the rules have changed and that they will not issue any documents at all.
It should do, no?