Hi all
as part of AOS as you all know, you are required to get married within 90 days, well we did of course, but this wasnt our 'big day' as im sure the same applies to allot of you, this was to get the paper work rolling.. now that we are legally married, we need to find someone to perform our traditional ceremony, our church wont do this as they say they cant marry us twice, so Id like to ask you guys if you had this same thing happen to you, and if you know any Pastors/ministers in the Dallas area that are willing to perform this type of ceremony that would also be great! just to explain a bit more on our situation, we didnt tell all our friends that we already married, as allot of them are coming from overseas we want them to think the day is in July, the day we getting married! We just felt some people wont understand and it will be to complicate d to explain why it is that government requires you to get married within a time limit.
Hope im not the only one in this boat!

They cant marry your twice ?????

A LOT of people (including my wife and I) only get married at the court house to get the ball rolling and THEN they do a religious ceremony.... I have heard some (or all ?) catholic churches wont marry someone who has been divorced, but that's not your case.

I guess we having some bad luck!!

or a bad minister/pastor/whatever...

You are not getting married a second time, you are having your marriage blessed. Totally different thing. Of course, no one will marry you to the same person again. Blessing a marriage is often called renewing of vows. People do it all the time, even in the Catholic Church.

Keep asking around. Someone will do it for you. If you are looking for a Church, it will have to be the pastor of that Church. If not a Church, there are people in the phone book you can look up, call, and have them come anywhere you please to do it.

I can just tell you our experience with this. We also did a civil ceremony so that we could start the AOS process and then did a big ceremony, which we consider our wedding day a couple of months later. We were married in a Catholic church and our priest wasn't too happy when we told him that we had done the civil ceremony first. But he then told us to go back and ask for a new marriage license and the issued us another one and called it a remarriage. The woman that issued the license said they've had to do that many times for cases like this where you've had the civil marriage and then want the religious one.

Again this is my experience and it may not work the same with your state or religion.

Good Luck
E.

Agree with the poster who suggested "blessing ceremony" or "renewal of vows" -- try using the magic words "blessing ceremony" (I feel that is more appropriate as renewal of vows suggest some years have passed in between) and you should get a lot farther with the officiants.

Maybe you asked them the wrong question. Tell them you want to reaffirm your vows in a church ceremony. All churches understand this. Your church probably understood your original request as requiring a new marriage license signed, etc. And they cannot do that! That was probably the confusion. Fernanda and I will be doing the same thing in June!

I agree with all the above posters, I think you may have phrased what you want done wrong. You do not need a new marriage license. You just want the "church blessing ceremony". You should also mention to your priest that you already have the marriage certificate from the civil, so you do not need to do it again. All Catholic churches will marry you (if they give you a hard time, call the Archdioses on them ). They may give you a dirty look that you did the civil first or that you are living together, but if you explain the I-129F, they'll understand we cant change USCIS

I would suggest a Unitarian Universalist pastor.

Well, they may or may not bless you. You see, there are a whole lot of rules with the Catholic Church and some sort of course may be required first. Just depends on the Priest. I have worked for the Catholic Church in St. Louis for the last 9 years. There are many ways around rules, you just have to find them.

I completely disagree with the person who said you can go get a second marriage license. I didn't even think that was possible.

I would kind of suggest someone a little unbiased too. The easiest thing.

That is strange! I see stories all the time of people getting married again so I don't see what the big deal is! Weird

Hi, Could you maybe explain a bit more on this one, never heard of a Unitarian Universalist pastor.. I am also not catholic, some people that have posted may have assumed this by mistake

Sure! Unitarian Churches are all over the country (dallasuu.org is the link to one in Dallas). I don't know too much about the church, but they're generally a more liberal branch of Christianity. My parents got married by a UU pastor because they aren't religious, and no other pastors in the area would marry them.

According to Wikipedia,
Unitarian Universalism (UUism) is a theologically liberal religious movement characterized by its support of a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning." This principle permits Unitarian Universalists a wide range of beliefs and practices. Unitarian Universalist congregations and fellowships tend to retain some Christian traditions such as Sunday worship that includes a sermon and singing of hymns, but do not necessarily identify themselves as Christians.

very helpful, thanks!