Weddings in 2 Countries?

[AussieStacey 0]

My partner, who is American, has the bright idea that he wants to get married in both Australia and USA on the same day. Get married in Australia in the morning, hop on a plane and get married in the USA in the night. 2 weedings, 1 anniversary lol It is physically possible for us to do it...but how on earth would we get on with the visas? Is it even legal? Thanks in advace for your advice!

[sms78 18]

So are you marrying to your baby father?

[GCPony 14]

We wed in the states, then had a full-blown church blessing of our marriage in England. Seems less complicated than two-weddings, and we thought it just as romantic

Edited June 7, 2012 by GCPony

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

There is no visa that supports those plans. IF you enter on a K1 your can't marry there. You could do both on another visa then go come and wait out the CR1 which makes for your romanatic marriage but not so romatic of a life after until you get a CR1

[Penguin_ie 5,987]

You cannot have two legal weddings; married is married.

Does it matter whether you are together after the wedding(s) or not? If it doesn't matter, you could have a legal wedding in Australia, fly over on the visa waiver program, have a ceremonial blessing in the USA, stay with your now-husband for the 90 days on the visa waiver program, then return to Australia to wait out the CR-1 visa process.

If you want to be together after the weddings, you could have a ceremonial wedding (make sure it is NOT legal) in Australia after sucessfully getting the K1 visa, then fly over and get legally married in the USA. However, many people recommend against that as if the border officer thinks you are legally married, they may cancel your visa.

[S and R 8]

My partner, who is American, has the bright idea that he wants to get married in both Australia and USA on the same day. Get married in Australia in the morning, hop on a plane and get married in the USA in the night. 2 weddings, 1 anniversary lol It is physically possible for us to do it...but how on earth would we get on with the visas? Is it even legal? Thanks in advace for your advice!

[/quote

This sounds more of a logistics question and less a legal one. My take is that you can get married on the same day as per your plans on the condition that either of you has no restrictions to enter each other's country of residence - VWP for USA, less stressful for the USC coming to Australia, given that the whole world is welcome to visit OZ - we are not so fussed. After the same-day wedding, you can then start the paperwork for a CR-1, with the OZ resident returning before the VWP window runs out after 90 days.

Are you looking at 2 marriage certificates?? One certificate is usually enough to certify the legal requirements for either country. The whole thing sounds romantic though....:-)

[Xanax 349]

Only one marriage would be the legal one, the other would be a non-legal ceremony.

I believe you could (before you file of course) marry in Australia, fly to the US and have a ceremony there, come back to Australia and have your new spouse to file CR-1... of course this way you would spend the first 6-12 months seperated from your new husband (though you can visit on the VWP).

IF you have already applied for a visa like the K-1 then this is not possible.

Edited June 7, 2012 by BrittandDan

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

In some states in the US you can have a second legal wedding. In NY, for instance, you can marry the same person over and over again.

Of course it's not required... if you are married in Aus you are married in US.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Harpa Timsah

[KLS2010 30]

Not really commenting on the logistics of getting married twice - as others have said...you can only LEGALLY get married once. The US will recognise a valid marriage from Australia and vice versa.

Just wanted to throw this out there.... don't know if you are planning on changing your name to your husband's name after marriage.... but if so you may want to consider making the marriage in Australia the legal one. The reason I say this is because the passport office will not recognise an overseas marriage certificate as proof for changing your name on your passport. I found this out the hard way after getting married in the US, and then deciding to take my husband's last name - I had to formally change my name with Births, Deaths and Marriages in order to have my passport reissued in my married name.

Oh, and just thinking about the logistics.... if you are planning on having the 'fake' wedding here in Australia then flying to the US for the 'real' wedding.... you will have to look into how to get a marriage license when you arent in the country for long prior to getting married. Most states I believe (similar to Australia) have a waiting period on how long you have to wait to get married after your marriage license is issued (ie in Texas, where I was married... you have to wait 72hrs before you can get married).

Good luck with it all

[Peter_Pan 661]

How about getting married in the secondary location exactly a year after wedding number 1?