NVC Marriage Certificate/Certified Copy for Civil Documents?

[I&B 1]

I'm not sure what to do about the marriage certificate for the NVC CEAC civil documents. I have the original marriage certificate with me in the US, but my partner lives in Canada. We'd like to avoid having me mail the original to him if possible since we don't want to risk losing it in the mail.

 

The NVC states that we can submit either the original marriage certificate or a certified copy. I obtained an "Affidavit of Record of Marriage" from the court where we got the license. According to them that was what they could give me in place of a "certified copy", so we were going to upload a scan of that and then I was going to mail him the affidavit to take to the interview.

 

However, looking at the interview requirements for Montreal (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Supplements/Supplements_by_Post/MTL-Montreal.html), it just says to bring the original marriage certificate to the interview and doesn't mention certified copies. Does anyone who has experience with the Montreal interviews know if the "Affidavit of Record of Marriage" we have would be ok, or does it absolutely have to be the original?

 

If he has to take the original marriage certificate instead, does that mean we should upload a scan of the original to the NVC instead of the affidavit so that the NVC submission matches what he brings to the interview?

[Saqib-s 188]

Not sure if the affidavit of record of marriage would be correct. Usually the certified copy is whatever the relevant authority would give you if the original was lost. Where was the marriage certificate issued USA or Canada? 

I can assure you that what you bring to the interview has to match what you upload to the NVC in CEAC. 

 

 

 

 

[I&B 1]

8 minutes ago, Saqib-s said:

Not sure if the affidavit of record of marriage would be correct. Usually the certified copy is whatever the relevant authority would give you if the original was lost. Where was the marriage certificate issued USA or Canada? 

I can assure you that what you bring to the interview has to match what you upload to the NVC in CEAC. 

 

 

 

 

We got married and the marriage certificate was issued in the USA.

 

That's good to know about the interview/CEAC matching, we'll make sure to have him take whichever one we end up uploading.

[Saqib-s 188]

Looks like each state handles replacements / copies of marriage certificates differently. You can search online for the process of obtaining a replacement of your marriage certificate for the state/county you're in to verify what a replacement would look like, I.e a certified copy of the record or the affadavit you mentioned.  What ever this is should suffice.  
 

This link is for a county in Arizona, and says that the Affadvit is the same as a certified copy. 
 

https://www.coconino.az.gov/134/Marriage-Licenses#:~:text=An Affidavit of Record of Marriage%2C sometimes called a replacement,representing the original marriage license.&text=An Affidavit of Record of Marriage can be obtained either,of the Superior Court office.

 

If you outline which state/ county your marriage certificate was issued in someone here might be able to advise you based of their experience.