US citizen marrying UK citizen in California, then living in UK

hello all,

new to this site, got recommended by a very helpful member of visajourney.com.  i'm a US citizen and my fiancee is a UK citizen.  we're currently engaged to get married this coming June 2009 in LA.  we're aware of the requirements to get married in CA (passport, marriage license, etc.) and are planning on having a private civil ceremony.    unfortunately, i haven't been able to get through to any of the county offices to set a wedding ceremony date.  i posted on visajourney.com about the issues of visas for the both of us and got some good feedback.  just to be sure, i'd like to make sure the answers i got were all correct.  maybe i should just do a list...

1.  we're concerned about whether my british fiancee needs a visa to enter the US to get married.  i was told that since we aren't planning on living in CA after our wedding, he can enter the US on a travel visitor, as long as he doesn't tell the immigration officer that he's there to get married.  want to make sure this is true??

2.  we both understand the requirements that are needed to get married in the UK.  we are concerned about the financial requirements since we will both be recent graduates when we get married.  at the moment, i am living in london on a student visa and just recently graduated.  my fiancee is a student now and will be graduating in may this year.  if we get married in CA, do we still need UK government to approve our marriage?  do we still need to prove and meet the financial requirements??  i'm not 100% sure of what is the process and what documents/applications we need for me to re-enter the UK after we get married in CA.  i read that we can apply for a marriage license with just our passports, but to then apply at the UK embassy for entry clearance, i would need my birth certificate (or do we both?) - i'm panicking because i can't remember where i last placed my birth cert.  any advice on how to get another copy fast??

3.  any advice on how to get through to someone about setting up a date for a civil ceremony in California (Preferably LA) would be great!  i found a website with a company that offered instant/emergency weddings, but their fees were ridiculous.  $500 for the whole thing, triple the price of what i'd pay if i arranged everything myself!


i feel like there are a few other concerns i'm forgetting, but i think this is a lot to start with for now.  i'd really appreciate any help i can get!

looking forward to reading helpful responses.  i'm so glad my fiancee and i decided to have a private civil ceremony, we thought of having a public ceremony with friends and family, but we decided to have something public later.  i would be going crazy trying to deal with all this legal crap and planning a wedding at the same time!



tryingtostaycalmbridetobe   

From what I understand, I don't believe he needs any visa to visit the US for your wedding (but pm Almariel, she will know for sure as her wedding is next month).  Then you would apply for a spousal visa for you to re-enter the UK.

From what I understand, I don't believe he needs any visa to visit the US for your wedding (but pm Almariel, she will know for sure as her wedding is next month).  Then you would apply for a spousal visa for you to re-enter the UK.

Thanks Slices!  I think we're going to look into the VWP for him.  As for the spousal visa, do you happen to know what the time frame is of getting the spousal visa processed from the US embassy in LA?  I heard it takes 4-6 weeks, but I'm wondering if there's a way we could request it to be done faster.  Again, I've tried calling them but there's no option to speak to someone live, there's a bunch of automated messages with options.  Very frustrating!  We're trying really hard to get as much done before flying over so we can quicken the pace. 

We both have return tix to fly back to London on July 21st, 2009.  He's flying over to LA on June 21st so that gives us exactly 1 month to sort everything out (really hope we can!!).

fingers crossed!

1. He doesn't need a visa to marry in the US.  He can tell the immigration officer he's there to get married, but that he doesn't intend to settle in the US.  That's all that's required, though it wouldn't hurt if he had something to show his ties to the UK, like a letter from his employer saying he's expected back at work on such-and-such a date.  It is very important that he DOES NOT LIE to the immigration officer.  He's not doing anything wrong by marrying in the US as a visitor.  

2. Once you're married, you will apply for a spousal visa to settle in the UK.  It's a pretty involved process, but there's lots of good information on this forum, so poke around a bit and if you have any further questions, post them on the Visas and Citizenship board.  

3. Can't help you with that, I was living in CA but got married in Vegas.  Couldn't have been easier, in fact, I'd highly recommend it if you don't want a big wedding.  

1. He doesn't need a visa to marry in the US.  He can tell the immigration officer he's there to get married, but that he doesn't intend to settle in the US.  That's all that's required, though it wouldn't hurt if he had something to show his ties to the UK, like a letter from his employer saying he's expected back at work on such-and-such a date.  It is very important that he DOES NOT LIE to the immigration officer.  He's not doing anything wrong by marrying in the US as a visitor.  

2. Once you're married, you will apply for a spousal visa to settle in the UK.  It's a pretty involved process, but there's lots of good information on this forum, so poke around a bit and if you have any further questions, post them on the Visas and Citizenship board.  

3. Can't help you with that, I was living in CA but got married in Vegas.  Couldn't have been easier, in fact, I'd highly recommend it if you don't want a big wedding.  

Hrmmm....I thought of Vegas, but initially thought having a marriage in my hometown would be easier, I'm thinking maybe not.  Did you end up staying in the US after your marriage or did you move to the UK?  I'd love to know more about LV, we're open-minded and want whatever is easiest really.  I've gotta say, it's testing our patience, I get really frustrated sometimes.  I'm really grateful he doesn't get tempermental as easily as I do when it comes to these things.

I stayed in the US for about 6 weeks after our honeymoon ended, mostly because I didn't have a clue about how best to approach the spousal visa, so it took longer than necessary to get all the stuff together.  Plus, I took some time to visit my family since I knew I wouldn't be seeing them for a while.  But if you're on top of things, there's no reason why you can't have your visa within a few weeks of your wedding.  Within a week if you're really on the ball.  I'd strongly advise you to read the Visas and Citizenship board for other people's stories and advice. 

We chose Vegas because my husband had always wanted to go there, and because it is the easiest, quickest, most straightforward place in the world to get married.  The license was a breeze to obtain, no blood tests or waiting periods.  You can download the forms ahead of time, then just turn them in at the city hall the day you arrive.  Plus, there are some really nice chapels, they're not all kitschy.  We went to the Little Chapel of the Flowers (www.littlechapel.com) and it was really nice.  We got a package that included a bouquet, pictures, a DVD of the ceremony, music, limo ride from our hotel to the chapel and back, and live video of the ceremony over the internet.  I was a bit concerned about the live internet thing, because I thought it might be seen as tacky, but people loved it.  Our families and friends were able to watch the ceremony from all over the world, and everyone thought it was great.  Definitely take a look at the website if you're considering Vegas. 

1. He doesn't need a visa to marry in the US.  He can tell the immigration officer he's there to get married, but that he doesn't intend to settle in the US.  That's all that's required, though it wouldn't hurt if he had something to show his ties to the UK, like a letter from his employer saying he's expected back at work on such-and-such a date.  It is very important that he DOES NOT LIE to the immigration officer.  He's not doing anything wrong by marrying in the US as a visitor.  

Just got your PM, but am responding here, hope that's cool! Historyenne is exactly right--this is what I've been told both here and on other forums. So long as your fiance has proof of his ties to the UK (in our case, my fiance will be bringing a copy of his contract to show proof of employment, and our lease, and some bank statements). There's actually a link on the US Embassy's website which indicates that this is legal (and of course I'm swamped at work and can't find it but if I do I will edit this post).

I do get a little nervous knowing that essentially whether or not our big family wedding (which I do very much want! )happens will depend entirely on what sort of mood the border guard is in on that day, but I have been in an LDR with my British half for over 5 years now and have seen couples like us do this constantly with no trouble.

The only problem I can see with your situation is that you say your fiance is graduating in May. Unless he finds employment like, NOW, that will allow him to be able to support you (the guideline for this is something like 95 pounds per weeek after fixed expenses) you will not have a successful visa application. But actually getting married in the US and then moving to the UK is definitely doable. You just have to be able to prove you can afford it. :/

I think by in large the IOs here aren't as tough with British citizens as they may be with others, *as long* as the Brit is being honest with them, and has some sort of tie back to the UK. I know I always breathe a little easier when Steve gets through immigration, but neither of us have been very concerned since he's always been honest, and has a job to go back to in the UK. I think if they sense deception, the IO can get somewhat cranky and will turn the Brit around, but if you meet the normal requirements for a visitor to the US it should be alright The VWP is somewhat automatic; you enter into it by default by visiting either the US or the UK without a prior visa beforehand, and it's what your fiance would be traveling on by coming to the US.

You also won't need the UK government to 'approve' the marriage; they recognize marriages from the US, and all you'll need is the marriage certificate to include with your application. If you need your birth certificate, you need to get ahold of the county in which you were born and find a department of vital statistics or somesuch to request one from them (I'm not really sure if that's the name, it's stuck in my brain for some reason, but a google search will help you bring up the right department).

If you use a courier, you can sometimes get your application back in 24-48 hours to a few days, so that's a way to *try* and expedite the process, since using something like FedEx sends your application to the bottom of the pile (using a courier puts it to the front since they can hand-deliver it straight to the department that handles the visas).

So, you don't need to do anything special to get the UK to recognize your marriage, as long as it's a legitimate marriage certificate. But like others have said in here, you do need to meet those financial requirements for a spousal visa--roughly 95 quid a week after bills but before things like food is what the ECO looks for. Like almariel said, getting married in the US is the easy part, you two might need to work on the application bit some more though if you can't make that threshold.

Hrmmm....I thought of Vegas, but initially thought having a marriage in my hometown would be easier, I'm thinking maybe not.  Did you end up staying in the US after your marriage or did you move to the UK?  I'd love to know more about LV, we're open-minded and want whatever is easiest really.  I've gotta say, it's testing our patience, I get really frustrated sometimes.  I'm really grateful he doesn't get tempermental as easily as I do when it comes to these things.

I got married in a civil ceremony in my hometown in PA, and it was very straightforward and very quick! I called the county courthouse to inquire about how to marry at the courthouse. They told me we could apply for the marriage license at the county courthouse, but would have to do the ceremony at the local district court. I contacted my local district court and they told me I just had to fill out a form requesting the date. I was approved for my date (which was only about a month from the time I submitted the form) and was approved very quickly.

The only thing that might have been an issue was the short period of time between applying for the license and the actual ceremony. We did the license on a Monday, and got married that Friday. The district court usually requires couples to have the license in much earlier, but because we had made them aware of our circumstance, we were able to pick up the license from the county courthouse on the Thursday and take it directly to the district court. no issues whatsoever. I can't imagine that it would be much more difficult in CA! but clearly I don't know for sure.

I haven't gotten married yet, but I checked with the county clerk here in Beaverton and she said everything we were doing was legal; all we needed to do was wait three days after filing the license before we could get married. She then gave me a list of judges who could marry us in the county, I picked one kinda at random, called the office and scheduled something for May 27th. It was kinda painless when I did it, but I also called back in February so I knew for sure I'd be able to get in and get sorted.

I was married in CA to my wonderful British Hubby...We just called the county clerks office where my parents lived about a month in advance of the date we wanted to be married (we were still in the UK at that time). We were advised that there was no waiting time or blood tests needed and that the application would take about 30 minutes to complete & for the license to be issued so to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to our marriage appointment (we were married by the county clerk who is also the commissioner of marriages in that county).  The only thing my husband had to show was his UK passport.

Our appointment was at 11.30am we arrived at 11, filled out the forms took the oath and by 12 (the clerk didn't arrive until 11.45) we walked out of the office married! Only cost $125.00.