Philippines, religious ceremony, CENOMAR

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

13 hours ago, payxibka said:

Don't share anything about the party with the Embassy

Yeah that will work out just fine....NOT

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

1 hour ago, notantifun said:

The only reason it will be the reason for denial is if they let the embassy know........ with the mock wedding pics and all. Only idiots will do that. People do mock weddings all the time. I don't know any law that prohibits that.

Yeah you go ahead and do that or the op does. Then they will come back here and complain about being denied for being married but they aren't "officially married". How the CO screwed them and it's the CO's fault for not understanding what went on. 

 

Trust me us long timers on VJ have seen and heard this many many times on here. It is never wise to do it or to lie to the CO. 

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

9 hours ago, Bill&leah said:

i didnt mean "work out" as in, to do something and "Get away" with it...not trying to commit fraud...just wondering if the officers in manilla tend to deny if they found evidence of some engagement party / religious ceremony thing even with knowing that there is no legal marriage and it was just that, only a ceremony, not a catholic one at that. Most immigration lawyer websites are all saying it is ok to have a ceremony, just probably not the best idea to go producing pictures of it during your interview as then things start to confuse the officer and then you just shot your self in the foot, not that you admitted fraud, or that there was fraud because your not actually married, but that you just swayed the officers mind into the not so sure about this one and this looks fishy to me so then your denied told to go get a marriage visa instead because sorry, your little party looked like a wedding to me. you know? 

Yes, if they find evidence of a religious/engagement ceremony then they can and will deny it. BTW they do look at social media so unless your completely without any type of social media then they will find out about it.

[payxibka 10,047]

13 minutes ago, NuestraUnion said:

Only one person mentioned it was fraud. And they were checked on it immediately after.

 

Yet we have many threads on this site in the pass where people have been denied for having such ceremony. Including an incident where the CO was viewing social media for pics of the ceremony of the couple.

 

It is up to the OP to do decide. Many have done it. But like I said, we have also seen people get denied for it.

Only one person in this thread mentioned the "F" word but people on this board use that word way to freely.  I joined this board more than 10 years ago and nothing has changed in this regard

[AnJ Co 1,676]

Was sorta kinda in the same situation as the OP........ We had read about being 'too married' BUT also heard the concerns of our family in PH as they wanted to have something they could attend in person.  We were asked many times to do some kind of a 'thing' for them in the PH before we left.  I admit that I am tempted often times to take a short cut and try to get away with something, and that my 'cautionary traits' are usually weak.  We considered how to do something for them before we left our PH family.  We even debated the possibility of a 'Wedding Rehearsal' in PH so they could have influence in the minutia of the wedding when it took place.  After all was considered, it simply was not worth the risk to do anything of the sort prior to POE.  The fact of the matter deduced down to this......  Was doing something like this worth us being separated by oceans longer just to appease other people?      NO        We had no PH ceremony or gathering, and after POE, our wedding in Florida on the beach, under the sunrise, on facebook live and our PH family were probably just as happy or happier this way.

 

key word:   RISK

[Naes 12,205]

I'm sorry but I seriously feel the need to explain one thing;

 

I didn't say visa fraud.

 

however, if a country's law asks for you to register a wedding after religious ceremony in an amount of days, or considers it as legal even if you don't register. After that period it would become a fraud without the person noticing.

 

i repeat I did not say anything about a visa fraud. But it can end up by the law of Philippines as a fraud.

[payxibka 10,047]

10 hours ago, Naes said:

No, don't do it. This is the real legal advice anyone can give you to stop you from fraud.

 

if someone actually says oh we did it and it worked out, that's basically saying oh our fraud worked well.

 

You've already been advised by many. And no I'm not going to say just hide from the embassy.

 

it is not an engagement. I feel sorry reading this for the couples who was really just getting engaged and got denied.

 

 

you're planning a wedding with the dress and everything and expecting your lie to pass. 

Hmmmmm

Edited December 5, 2017 by payxibka

[Naes 12,205]

Just now, payxibka said:

Hmmmmm

Fraud of being married but not registering.

 

not knowing won't justify the situation.

 

the title of this post says, religious ceremony and cenomar. Hence religious wedding is marriage in the country, equals to acting like it is not marriage ending up being a fraud.

 

i did not said visa fraud.

 

I don't even understand your obvious obsession with this whole I did not tell anyone that they were doing it. I said I wouldn't tell him to do it.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

7 minutes ago, AnJ Co said:

Was sorta kinda in the same situation as the OP........ We had read about being 'too married' BUT also heard the concerns of our family in PH as they wanted to have something they could attend in person.  We were asked many times to do some kind of a 'thing' for them in the PH before we left.  I admit that I am tempted often times to take a short cut and try to get away with something, and that my 'cautionary traits' are usually weak.  We considered how to do something for them before we left our PH family.  We even debated the possibility of a 'Wedding Rehearsal' in PH so they could have influence in the minutia of the wedding when it took place.  After all was considered, it simply was not worth the risk to do anything of the sort prior to POE.  The fact of the matter deduced down to this......  Was doing something like this worth us being separated by oceans longer just to appease other people?      NO        We had no PH ceremony or gathering, and after POE, our wedding in Florida on the beach, under the sunrise, on facebook live and our PH family were probably just as happy or happier this way.

 

key word:   RISK

That's exactly me and my asawa were thinking as well before we got married. She was and still is wanting something for her family to attend in the Philippines but I just did not want to risk it at all. We just had a big going away party and flew to USA to get married. The majority of her family didn't care at all that we didn't have a religious ceremony they just liked the free beer and lechon. The other people that did care weren't going to pay for anything anyway so I didn't care what they thought about us needing to do a ceremony there. 

 

We are going to do a beach wedding next year because we can't do a Catholic ceremony due to me not wanting to convert to Catholicism. 

[payxibka 10,047]

How can you commit marriage fraud and then apply for a K-1 visa and it not automatically be visa fraud at the same time.  You don't have to specifically say it to infer it

[msscarlette 488]

Hello, Filipina here.

 

I haven't heard of a religious wedding without the catholic church getting involved even though it is a "mock wedding". When you get married in the Philippines, you have to give a certificate of no marriage,  marriage license application from the municipality, a pre-marriage seminar and a wedding permit from the church. There will still be a record of you getting married in the Philippines. Even if you don't register your marriage certificate, you might have a problem in the future. 

 

Please follow the advice from the others who posted here. 

 

The US embassy will look through Facebook accounts and you might notice  that , we, Filipinos like to take selfies a lot.  It will be a sure denial in your interview for K1 visa.

 

Why not look into CR-1 visa (spousal visa) instead? 

Edited December 5, 2017 by msscarlette

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

7 minutes ago, msscarlette said:

Hello, Filipina here.

I haven't heard of a religious wedding without the catholic church getting involved even though it is a "mock wedding". When you get married in the Philippines, you have to give a certificate of no marriage,  marriage license application from the municipality, a pre-marriage seminar and a wedding permit from the church. There will still be a record of you getting married in the Philippines. Even if you don't register your marriage certificate, you might have a problem in the future. 

Please follow the advice from the others who posted here. 

The US embassy will look through Facebook accounts and you might notice  that , we, Filipinos like to take selfies a lot.  It will be a sure denial in your interview for K1 visa.

Why not look into CR-1 visa (spousal visa) instead? 

We just had a post on the Philippines Subforum about how someone is having to do an annulment na because of doing exactly this. She had only a religious ceremony with her then bf and somehow it got registered. She ended up getting married at a later date with a American and had 2 kids with him. They went through the CR-1 process and was pretty much denied at the interview because of previous "unregistered wedding". 

 

Now she is having to do an annulment for the first marriage and a K1 visa with the father of her two kids. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by cyberfx1024

[msscarlette 488]

5 minutes ago, cyberfx1024 said:

We just had a post on the Philippines Subforum about how someone is having to do an annulment na because of doing exactly this. She had only a religious ceremony with her then bf and somehow it got registered. She ended up getting married at a later date with a American and had 2 kids with him. They went through the CR-1 process and was pretty much denied at the interview because of previous "unregistered wedding". 

Ouch! Annulment in the Philippines cost 350 thousand pesos ($7000) at the very least! 

 

There will always be a paper trail in the Philippines. The church has an obligation to send birth, marriage and death records to the government. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by msscarlette

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

3 minutes ago, msscarlette said:

Ouch! Annulment in the Philippines cost 350 thousand pesos ($7000) at the very least! 

 

There will always be a paper trail in the Philippines. The church has an obligation to send birth, marriage and death records to the government. 

That is so true. There is always a paper trail in the Philippines because everybody wants some money for a fee for this or that. 

 

 

[Naes 12,205]

22 minutes ago, payxibka said:

How can you commit marriage fraud and then apply for a K-1 visa and it not automatically be visa fraud at the same time.  You don't have to specifically say it to infer it

This person is not trying to commit fraud.

 

not trying to get a k1 with a fraud.

 

i repeat I said, but by law and that's why I put those links not to confuse you or anyone, in Philippines having a religious wedding and not registering if by Islam, or having a church wedding; these equals to being married under law.

 

therefore omitting this information and getting a cenomar would end up as a fraud let alone US embassy it would not be ok in phillipines itself.

 

Now I have no idea where I said this person is committing fraud. And because geowrian (I hope I wrote the name correctly) explained it better than I could, I just left it to those who could explain it better.

 

yet I don't understand your repetition of this as you're continuously coming back to the same things.

 

if this was written in a regional topic I wouldn't even open my mouth.

 

obviously there's a huge problem about it.