Why the Moldovan route is short
Moldova accepts a single-step certificate added in the United Kingdom. One office adds it, nothing follows it, and the paper is finished on this side of the journey. Consular legalization for Moldova is not a stage you can buy, book or hurry along, because it is simply not there, and a mark nobody asked for makes no file stronger.
The confusion is fair enough. Moldovan paperwork has a reputation for length, and older guidance still describes a chain of desks that no longer touches a British document. What a Moldovan office wants today is the record itself, certified, with the British mark on the page and a Romanian version beside it so a clerk can actually read the thing.
Counting back from the date
Most Moldovan files arrive with a date already attached: an enrolment window at a university in Chisinau, a residence application, a registry appointment for a marriage or a change of name. Work backwards from it. The British certificate is the fixed cost in that plan, at 7–10 business days as standard or 2–3 business days if you buy express.
Everything around it is elastic. A certified extract takes days to reach you, a Romanian text takes days more, and the post at each end is a week that shows on no tracking page. Embassy legalization for Moldova from Edinburgh is not in the sum at all, which is the biggest single reason these files land in time when people start early.
What the Moldovan desk receives
Think of it as one bundle rather than a stack of loose papers. The certified extract, the British certificate on it, and the Romanian text, fastened together and sent as a set. A clerk who has to match three separate sheets to one applicant is a clerk who can hand the whole thing back, and nothing in a Moldovan office moves faster for having been split up.
Where names differ between the Scottish record and the Moldovan one — a grandmother's surname written one way in Chisinau and another way here — put that in the covering note rather than leaving it to be spotted. Files built on a parent's or grandparent's entry live or die on that match, and a piece of paper cannot explain itself to the person reading it.