why are you getting married in the USA..not in your home country?

[iamthebest 2]

anyone?

[Pitaya 2,577]

Welcome to the forum.

Please refer to the Form I-129F instructions for rationale of getting married in the US:

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-129finstr.pdf

[Formula1 5]

Is this is a legal question or just a life question? You can get married wherever you want and in the way you want: it is called freedom. Many people get married in their houses but they are not married under the eyes of a government. That does not mean they are not married. In the eyes of the government you need to get married (in this case I call it civil marriage) in order to get rights that only a government can issue (immigration rights for example). You marry the way the system wants and you can enter the system. So if your intension is coming to the US does not matter if you married here or in your homeland always thats is done in an official way and how the government wants. Consider that outside the US in some countries you can civil marry a lot of women but that would be not acceptable for the US government. US government wants you to be civil married in its way in order to have immigration benefits. So to sum up: if you ask a government to recognize your marriage you can use that document to your immigration purposes. If you want to get civil government marriage in the US tho, you need to ask permission first to the federal government and thats called K1 visa and starts with your fiance/e sending the form I-129.

[Metanastis 0]

I can't comment on the Fiance Visa process, because I don't know it. I think you need to get married in the US if you follow this route.

Aside from the Fiance Visa, you can get married outside the US and still have all the privileges of a US spouse. You can read our story (we got married abroad and adjusted status in the US) at http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/437378-aos-and-preconceived-intent/#entry6342937

To my knowledge the US will recognize a marriage certificate from most countries (translated, we also got an apostille) - we had no issues there.

[B & G 200]

I'll reply to this as I understood it. We are already married so we are following the CR1 route but we did get married in the US and not in Greece.

Reason... too much bureaucracy and paperwork to get a marriage license issued in Greece. Meant my now husband would have had to make 2 trips to Athens, one for just the paperwork and issueing the license and another for the actual wedding. He didn't have the luxury of taking a month of work for us to do it in one go.

Getting a marriage license in the US is a different story. 2 trips to the courthouse, one on monday to issue the license and one on friday to get married. No paperwork needed, no translations of documents, just my passport, his driver's ID and 40 bucks!

That doesn't mean I ain't having a huge wedding reception in Greece in a month, just means I have the legal stuff out of the way!

[KayDeeCee 4,893]

Because the requirement of a K-1 visa is that you must marry in the US within 90 days of entry?

[Netsikai 20]

If that is ask to me...I will answer I will marry in the USA because it is one of the requirement for k1 visa to get married within 90 days of my arrival in the USA.

[cazzers 83]

This was one of the questions the CO asked me on my interview day.

[NikLR 13,227]

*** moved to off topic from K1 process and procedures as question is vague and isn't immigration related ***

Edited July 3, 2013 by NikiR

[Alex+Nastya 11]

What if your home country is USA?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

What if you get married neither in the US nor in your home country?

[Darnell 8,478]

well, part of being 'the best', is that one follows the requirements of the K-1 visa.

Getting married in the USA is one of those requirements, so if'n you wish to maintain yer 'best-est-ness' then you need to do what the government has told you to do.

[Metanastis 0]

I'll reply to this as I understood it. We are already married so we are following the CR1 route but we did get married in the US and not in Greece.

Reason... too much bureaucracy and paperwork to get a marriage license issued in Greece. Meant my now husband would have had to make 2 trips to Athens, one for just the paperwork and issueing the license and another for the actual wedding. He didn't have the luxury of taking a month of work for us to do it in one go.

Getting a marriage license in the US is a different story. 2 trips to the courthouse, one on monday to issue the license and one on friday to get married. No paperwork needed, no translations of documents, just my passport, his driver's ID and 40 bucks!

That doesn't mean I ain't having a huge wedding reception in Greece in a month, just means I have the legal stuff out of the way!

Na zisete (gia to civil ceremony) kai i ora i kali gia to gamo stin Ellada!!! Good luck

[NikLR 13,227]

Na zisete (gia to civil ceremony) kai i ora i kali gia to gamo stin Ellada!!! Good luck

please keep to english unless you're in the regional forums.

[B & G 200]

Na zisete (gia to civil ceremony) kai i ora i kali gia to gamo stin Ellada!!! Good luck

Thank you very much for the congratulations on our wedding!