Hello folks,

Well I have one of my biggest fears that our petition will get an RFE based on the fact that we didn’t provide any court documents with our marriage, though I have provided my government issued electoral and state identity cards where my husband’s name is stated.

Anyways, I am trying to prepare for the RFE, if we do get it, then my husband will fly to India and get the marriage registered.

Now I have talked with a local lawyer in Port Blair and he has suggested 2 ways of doing it, one is pretty fast, takes only 2 days where as the other ones takes 1 month time.

1) Both me and my husband takes an oath in front of a notary officer and he provides us with the notarized certificate.


2) On the first day of my husband’s arrival, we go to district court, signs some papers, wait for 1 month, get back there sign some more in front of the district magistrate and get the court stamped certificate.

Now my question is, which one shall I choose, the first one sounds more tempting but I don’t want to do any more blunder mistakes. So if you guys can help me choose, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

Silent,

Most of us gone through Special Marriage Act which takes 1 month, i can understand the pain but this is the only way in india for marriage solemnization.

I know the other way as well but i read someone got Visa denied because he could not prove his marriage terminology in interview. he shown his court marriage certificate which was not enough for CO.

Thanks Roza.

I hope not to receive any RFE but if we do, then we will go through that 1 month process.

It is special marriage act if your husband is still an Indian citizen and is a PR in U.S. If he is a U.S citizen, then it has to be foreign marriage act, which I think is what your lawyer gave you as a second option.

[Disclaimer for this sentence, I am not a lawyer] if you are getting legally wed again, then you will follow these, if you have been wed already, I mean few years back and now just to registered your traditional wedding, the process might be different and shorter is what I understand. In such a case, you won't have a wait period of 1 month etc. I am sure you should find references of these on the internet.

My husband is a US citizen (caucasian) and we got married at 2004. That time around we were told that getting married at Arya samaj is enough ( I admit we both were pretty immature regarding all these technicality of getting married). The lawyer I contacted a few days ago told me arya samaj wedding comes under special marriage act and its pretty valid according to Indian law.

I still do have fear about the court papers, which we haven't been able to provide.

So basically me and my husband are going to register the existing marriage if we do get an RFE.

I have been researching on this subject and the legal way of registering the marriage also takes 1 months time.

I just hope my husband gets leave from work for around 45 days if that does happen; you guys do know how things go in India, 1 month can go upto 1 and half months.

Special Marriage Act(1954) is almost same as foriegn marriage(1969).check by yourself in this doc

This makes it clear. Anything related to a foreign citizen is stricter/harder in India these days. I went through the same process, only difference is we had both our traditional and legal wedding close by. I don't think there is a way out other than your husband being present in person for the legal wedding/registration. But one thing you can check with your lawyer is if the form submission i.e., 30 days prior to the registration, if that can be done without him. We tried doing this(while my husband is an Indian origin and still has roots here), but the officials insisted that he should be present in person, but he didn't have much to do legally rather than just makes his presence felt during form submission. I feel it depends on the officer / office you are talking to. If this is possible your husband's India trip can be shortened.
One piece of friendly advise is, even though you don't get a RFE, I would suggest you get this registered later sometime at least as you would run into this problem in the future for any kind of legal requirement. All the best.

No, the presence is necessary of foreign spouse in solmnization.i statyed in india more than two months,i wanted to file direct in embassy diffrent story but yes i did stayed for 2 month to get the marriage cerificate done.

Yes my husband does need to be present for the marriage registration process to start.



Thank you neethope.

We actually plan to have another wedding, let it be a small civil ceremony in US or even in India later down the line in a year or 2 hopefully. Just the marriage hasn't been all so ideal from 2004, well that's a different story (financial burden, this distance, blah blah).

So whenever we start our life together finally, let it be in India or US, we do plan for a small wedding.

Thanks again guys for all the help

Just keeping my fingers crossed for an approval.

Hi all,

Just wanted to update that our i-130 petition did get approved without the registered marriage certificate from court.

Not sure if just Arya samaj copy was enough or is the fact that I provided my electoral and my islander's identity card, which had my husband's name stated in those.

Thank you all for your time and help

Hi,

Congratz for you i-130 approval.

If you got married in 2004 and your husband was a US citizen in 2004 as well, why did you wait so long to file for the I-130.
Be prepared to answer this at the visa interview. I still think you'll need the marriage certificate issued from registrar or marriages for the visa interview. Don't assume that, just because your I-130 did not require it, visa folks too don't require it. visa folks are very different than the USCIS folks. They are 2 different govt. agencies.

Thanks for your comments journeyman.

Actually we have already answered that while filing our i-130 about why we weren't able to file our petition till recently and seriously I am not thinking that just because we got the i-130 approved it won't be any hassle during the interview. Just it was a breath of fresh air for a while.