Salaams Ramadan Kareem

Hope Everyone is doing well.

We are trying to figure out away around this no marriage thing in Egypt.I have looked into Cyprus,but I was trying something alittle closer like Jordan.And I have just starting looking into Jordan.I was wondering if anyone that has gotten married in Jordan could give me some helpful info?

i was wondering what's the wrong with K1 visa as a start then you can get married in the states ?

I have to second that notion. It looks to me like a big conundrum of getting married in a 3rd country, a lot of holes that would have to get sewn up when the visa time comes.

Plus on a K-1 he can work for the first 90 days. You'd save the money of traveling to a third country AND he'll be able to start off his time here with a job.

TUnisia is the easiest... I got married in a week there... But i would k1 it

there's a no marriage thing in Egypt? Guess I've been under a rock too long.
Anyway I was just going to add that getting married in Jordan would have been super difficult for us if we didn't have a relative of his walking us through the whole process. We had to go to 4 different court-like places, plus a blood test, and locally registering it, getting the family book somewhere else a different day... I think most of it would have taken way more than a week too but for $ people expedite things and I don't know if you want to deal with those kinds of situations.
I do have a suggestion, tho. Aqaba Jordan is lovely, not too far from him, and very touristy. I wouldn't be suprised if there werent wedding packages available with streamlined processes. If I was you I might contact the hotels there and see if theres anything they offer along those lines.

I am not familiar with the regulations for Egypt. We also got married in Tunisia - took us 4 days to do it. The K3 interview takes place in the County that you were married. Lucky for us, the I-130 was approved first, so my husband was able to have his interview in his home county of Algeria and didn't have to make a trip back to Tunisia.

Good luck with your decision.

This kind of marriage is not recognized in the US.



To the OP...

Not sure why this insistance on marriage and making things difficult for yourself. Especially if you haven't met your SO in person. How do you know you really want to marry this person if you haven't met IRL? Chats, phone calls and cams aren't good ways to judge character. Go to Egypt, meet the guy, meet his family, experience the culture...then decide if marriage is even in the future. Insist that you meet the family, if he doesn't let you meet the family...RUN!

Bwahahaha! Aqaba.

I bet it's nice this time of year, but summer -

Wife says: "Why do you want to go to Petra? It's so hot there ... let's go to Aqaba instead."
I say: "Believe me, you'll like Petra better. It's something most people only see once in a lifetime."
Anyways - 2nd day in Aqaba she says: "You were right ... we should have just gone to Petra...."

Turns out, Petra was *COOLER* and *LESS HUMID* than Aqaba. WOOHOO! So next time there's a question I'm the right one! ( Wow, that's a change! But ... don't tell her that. )

*Note from the wise.:

When going anywhere, even if you're a local ... do yourself a favor. Stay in the tourist hotel. Local hotels be damned! Take the resort!

You'll thank me for it.

I have to agree with Dawn....We got put through the ringer in Jordan...they sent us to court after court after court.....medical tests....etc..etc...it took us a week of going here to there every single day...the judge finally told me I had to get something from the embassy proving I was Christian...went to the embassy and the lady was FURIOUS...she sent me BACK to the judge to tell him about ''discrimination in the US"....anyway, finally the judge signed the papers with the condition that we took another blood test (a court approved medical center)....the policeman felt so sorry for us....he called us after talking to the judge and helped us tremendously....found us someone to come to the house and do the marriage contract, etc...had we not found this nice man....not sure if we would have EVER been married...

BUT....the wedding party the next week was AMAZING!!!! So much different than our wedding parties here in the states....lol...i wouldn't trade the experience for anything now!!!

The problem with that is that I have heard several cases turned away at the courthouse door as soon as they see the US passport. It's not just the embassy giving people problems but also the courthouse is not even talking to you if you have a us passport.

I think the easiest and simpler route for two people now is the K-1. No hassle with trying to get around the new marriage rules, you get to work immediately upon entry to the US and you get to see your Egyptian SO in action here in the US before tying the knot. I know that sounds pessimistic but what with all the recent abuse stories we've seen on VJ it's definitely a good idea.

Why wouldn't the US Embassy provide a letter stating the American citizen is free to marry?

My husband and I married in a third country. I just needed to provide a certified copy (certified by the Courthouse where my divorce occured) that I was single and free to marry. The US Embassy gave it to me after waiting a few hours.

It's a new stipulation that Egypt started a few months ago that they will not accept the US Embassy's letter stating that one is free to marry. No one knows why they have done this but many speculate that it's due to the high volume of fraudulent marriages to US Citizens...............which makes no sense to me since they can just as easily get a K-1 visa and get married in the US.

Maby it's to make everyone apply for the K-1 visa before marriage. If it's a marriage of convenience would you really go through all this hell without being married? Gives you time to think about it and puts a strain on your relationship before the marriage and you really have to have a commitment to eachother before the commitment of marriage. Getting a K-1 is not exactly EASY.... That make any sense? I don't know, maby they think tourists were being talked into marriage and regretting it later or something.

So is marriage allowed, just no note from the embassy? What stops you from bring a note from home? It seems like if the object was to reduce the number of "on-the-fly" mixed marriages they would create a residency requirement or something. I'm thinking the embassy isn't writing single notes because they have better things to do and its stupid step to require you to take, but thats just my thoughts. Obviously I don't know what its like to deal with Cairo or the US embassy there.
To tell the truth, until after I was married and home I didn't even know that embassies issued letters. When I was getting my things together for my trip and saw I needed a doc certifying my singleness, I just wrote up a simple "I swear I'm single" note on plain paper and signed it in front of the notary at my currency exchange for a dollar. It was never questioned and I never would have thought it wasn't good enough til I later saw on vj that noone else did that. Again, I wasn't in Egypt.

No, marriage is not allowed in the courthouse which is the only place that a marriage must be done in order for it to be recognized by the US. One can get married in a masjid I guess but it will not be recognized by the US so you'd still have to go the K1 route. The note from home wouldn't cut it because the problem started with the courthouse not accepting the notes from the embassy. They would issue the note but the courthouse would not accept it. Then they just stopped issuing the notes since they're pointless in Egypt now.