A question for who those who got married in the courthouse in AZ after K1 [edited title]

[Ontarkie 14,443]

~~It is against the TOS to tell members not to post. You agreed to these terms when creating your account. As members have suggested you need to call the clerk that you will be dealing with. Yes every state is different, and every office within that State is different also. So stoping someone on the street where you live 'may' will result in the answer you need. So would calling the right department at the county clerks office.  This thread can remain open as long as the TOS is not violated again.~~

[Kim & Zak 195]

26 minutes ago, Ontarkie said:

~~It is against the TOS to tell members not to post. You agreed to these terms when creating your account. As members have suggested you need to call the clerk that you will be dealing with. Yes every state is different, and every office within that State is different also. So stoping someone on the street where you live 'may' will result in the answer you need. So would calling the right department at the county clerks office.  This thread can remain open as long as the TOS is not violated again.~~

My apologies, that was not the intention. My point, moreover, was that I'm seeking an answer from those in AZ who got married at a courthouse and I didn't expect anyone else to know the answer. If other folks want to post, that's fine.. It just will likely clog things up and it has already gone quite off-topic. The answer should be straight forward when it comes from someone with this experience. There seemed to be a lot of confusion surrounding a very simple question with a direct audience. And I was using an analogy with regards to the street scenario to try and clear up the intention of who may have an answer to this question - it's not going to be anyone but someone in this specific situation. It was literally only an analogy, not to be taken literally. If someone has been through this experience, they would would be able to reiterate the answer of this very simple question. This very simple question which is specific to a certain state and, preferably, county.

 

Unfortunately, the clerk was not helpful. I'm not sure if any other is going to be, I work office hours and I don't have the time to go around calling each individual office. I'm sure that if I have experienced this that, someone, at some point, may also experience it in the future and it would be beneficial to have one place to go where there might be an answer. Is not the whole point of VisaJourney to consolidate the American visa processes (a very high level understanding, since I'm positive someone would love to argue that as well)? I could also go calling the American embassy in Montreal (usually fruitless) or USCIS (also usually fruitless) for questions many people may have - but instead we have this website to help mitigate that issue. Well, this is the same issue - a government process with lack of direction that likely many people are going to have issues with (the instructions are not online for Phoenix, AZ) and an effort in finding a consolidated answer is beneficial. We also have pages specific to certain countries here as well, because the process is going to be different for every country. To be clear, the Phoenix Metropolitan area has one, standard way of booking appointments for marriages licenses as is indicative from the court's website. Logic would follow that there may be one standard way of booking the ceremony, but I don't know the answer to that and hence, my question. We are likely going to just get a cheap officiant, but this will possibly be good to stay open for someone else who may have trouble with the clerk like I have had, and just to keep our options open.  Of course, that's if we're able to get someone who was in this situation. 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Kim & Zak

[TBoneTX 46,067]

On 5/27/2018 at 2:29 PM, Kim & Zak said:

just realized the title has a typo

Fixed.

 

Ideas (recommended in this order):

1)  Rather than call the courthouse, call a Justice of the Peace or other officiant's office.

      They perform marriages all the time and will know the routine or the right people to talk to.

2)  Search for other VJ members who live in Arizona, then send PMs to see if they married there.

[Paul & Mallory 1,398]

I'm not in AZ, but I'm still sharing our experience (we're in SC) because it sounds similar to what we ran into, just in case it's helpful.

 

We could find no information prior to visiting our local Probate Court office. It was SUPER frustrating. All we could ever determine is that we could get the marriage license 24 hours after applying, which isn't what we needed to know - we wanted to get married at the courthouse also (our traditional wedding is in October, outside the 90 days).

 

It took speaking to a couple of people before we actually figured it out - some people just simply aren't familiar with K1/related visas, so sometimes we got a confused response from people. I finally called Probate court directly and asked to speak with someone familiar with international marriages, specifically when one spouse is in the country on a K1 visa. Luckily the woman who answered that day did know what we were talking about. It turns out, our county no longer officiates civil marriages in house. All they do is issue the marriage certificate, and then they provide recommendations of location officiants (most of which do same day or next day servicing).

 

If you still can't seem to get someone on the phone who has a clue, I would suggest biting the bullet and maybe taking a day, or half day, to visit your local office in person. It's annoying - mine is over a half hour away from where I live, and even further from where I work, so I had to take time off for us to initially go there and apply, then to go back and pick up the actual license. Maybe if they see your fiancé's I-94 or the visa itself, it will make more sense.

 

Good luck! I understand this frustration completely and hope you are able to clear it up soon!

[Kim & Zak 195]

2 minutes ago, Paul & Mallory said:

I'm not in AZ, but I'm still sharing our experience (we're in SC) because it sounds similar to what we ran into, just in case it's helpful.

 

We could find no information prior to visiting our local Probate Court office. It was SUPER frustrating. All we could ever determine is that we could get the marriage license 24 hours after applying, which isn't what we needed to know - we wanted to get married at the courthouse also (our traditional wedding is in October, outside the 90 days).

 

It took speaking to a couple of people before we actually figured it out - some people just simply aren't familiar with K1/related visas, so sometimes we got a confused response from people. I finally called Probate court directly and asked to speak with someone familiar with international marriages, specifically when one spouse is in the country on a K1 visa. Luckily the woman who answered that day did know what we were talking about. It turns out, our county no longer officiates civil marriages in house. All they do is issue the marriage certificate, and then they provide recommendations of location officiants (most of which do same day or next day servicing).

 

If you still can't seem to get someone on the phone who has a clue, I would suggest biting the bullet and maybe taking a day, or half day, to visit your local office in person. It's annoying - mine is over a half hour away from where I live, and even further from where I work, so I had to take time off for us to initially go there and apply, then to go back and pick up the actual license. Maybe if they see your fiancé's I-94 or the visa itself, it will make more sense.

 

Good luck! I understand this frustration completely and hope you are able to clear it up soon!

Thank you! This was helpful if even just to know someone else has experienced this. I posted the same question in a Reddit thread and that yielded some answers and I inquired with a friend who got married in a different part of AZ and my FH found some info as well so I'll be posting later what I've found in case anyone needs this in the future

[TBoneTX 46,067]

Two posts badgering the OP have been removed, along with a reply quoting.

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TBoneTX

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