K-1 - Marriage process advice

[EminTX 131]

Hi everyone.

My husband entered on his K- visa last month and we married one week later. We live in the 4th largest city in the US and bought our marriage license here in this city. We were told that they'd have the marriage certificate delivered back to us in under a month.

The reality of this is that the HUGE city we live in is s-l-o-w in processing things. I didn't even consider this and since we are on a time crunch because of a separate issue, this is even more frustrating.

My company requires for me to have proof of marriage within 30 days of the wedding to include my husband on my insurance. We got a certified copy of the marriage certificate 31 days after the wedding--the first day it was available. (I was told that our original will be mailed to us within 60 days.)

My professional license and certification are due this month. That extra time for city processing being coupled with the extra processing time for the national and state levels of my proof of professional legitimacy are more frustrating. To change my name, this is required and the extra delay is just a bummer. Applying for AOS has been on hold, too.

Here is the advice, if you live in a major city, drive to the next county or small city to get your marriage license. You'll probably be able to get on with this part of your life faster. We've all done enough waiting around and twiddling our thumbs between the times from sending the original petition and being face-to-face. There's no reason to waiting around extra just for "fun".

Good luck, everyone.

(Please note--I don't know the laws in every state. In my state of Texas, the license can be bought anywhere within in the state to be used anywhere within the state with the requirement being that there is a delay of at least 72 hours and that it is returned with the signature of the pastor within 30 days. Texas is very popular for destination weddings so I am guessing that there is less hassle than in many other places.)

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

It's not the same in every state. My wife and I got married at the county clerk's office in Oakland, California. Yeah, relatively small compared to Houston. Not even in the top 10 biggest cities, and barely in the top 50. Anyway, we walked in without an appointment and walked out about 30 minutes later with a certified marriage certificate. The whole process was simple and easy. You go into one room to fill out the marriage license application in one of their computer booths. They call your name and you both go and talk to a clerk. She checks your ID and you sign the license. If you want to get married while you're there then they'll get a Justice of the Peace to take you into a small chapel style room for the ceremony. They even found us a JP who spoke my wife's language, so we had a bilingual wedding!

The city we live in is on the same side of the San Francisco bay as Oakland, but it's considerably smaller. We could have gotten married by a judge at the courthouse here in our town, but we would have had to wait six weeks or more to get a marriage certificate.

The bottom line here is if you've got time issues then investigate ALL of your options.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Thank you for your input.

Check also with the license issuer before getting the license on options. Even in our tiny state (it would take 5 Vermonts to equal your CITY in population) we were told we had two options...

1. Allow the officiant to file the marriage license and wait 4-6 weeks for a copy to be mailed to us (you can WALK from one end the state to the other, in the mountains, and BACK, in 20 days)

OR

2. Ask the officiant to sign the license and give it to us, DRIVE it to the registration office and WAIT while they record it and give you a copy. I chose number two and had an official, stamped marriage certificate by 9am the next business day. Simply by doing the "legwork" myself.

[EminTX 131]

I called my HR office yesterday to get the fax number to send in the proof of marriage to add my new husband to my insurance. I was told that the 30-days-to-add him is a FEDERAL rule and that they have no control over that. I sent it in and will have to hope that he can be included for now. If not, well, I am glad that I went with a catastrophic plan and put the difference (between the price and a full coverage plan)into a bank account with an ATM card. This is how we pay for dr visits now. No games. No waiting. No referrals. No restrictions.

Again, LEAVE the city to do this. There is absolutely no reason to wait around for a major metropolitan area if you have the ability to avoid it.