Marriage Certificate in US?

[buggy22 1]

Hi,

We married in the Philipine with the Philippino government(she is Philippino) and I sponsored my wife and she came here 4 weeks ago.

She received her Green Card and applied for Social Security card.

Now she asked "when would we registrate our marriage in the US?" she looked at other new friends and wanted the Marriage Certificate as registered in the US...

Please advise if we could do that..thanks.

[caly 48]

I don't think you can do this. The marriage certificate you got in the Philippines is your legal certificate of marriage, you don't need anything else.

[srey 12]

I don't think you can do this. The marriage certificate you got in the Philippines is your legal certificate of marriage, you don't need anything else.

[aaron2020 11,651]

Hi,

We married in the Philipine with the Philippino government(she is Philippino) and I sponsored my wife and she came here 4 weeks ago.

She received her Green Card and applied for Social Security card.

Now she asked "when would we registrate our marriage in the US?" she looked at other new friends and wanted the Marriage Certificate as registered in the US...

Please advise if we could do that..thanks.

The US does not register marriages performed in foreign countries. While registering marriages is the practice in the Philippines, it is not done here.

Tell her that the US government already acknowledge your marriage when they granted her an immigration visa based on marriage to a US citizen. The US government has no procedure to register foreign marriages because it is not needed. Why would the government want more paperwork that you are married when the government has already granted you an immigration benefit based on marriage?

This question occurs all the time on this forum. Lots of people think the laws in their countries are similar to the US. It's a good starting point if one has limited knowledge about US marital laws, but you can educate her on how different things are here. The big one is not to lie on official paperwork because the US is really good at uncovering them and there is no guy to fix a problem with a little coffee money. LOL. This is from personal experience with people from my family who have immigrated here. Had to look at them look at me strangely when I tell them that the rules in Vietnam are not the rules in the US. They keep looking at me strangely like what we do here in the US makes no sense to them.

Edited December 14, 2012 by aaron2020

[Caryh 5,206]

You don't register your marriage here. And when she gets confused about Filipinas registering their marriage at the Philippines consulate, you don't do that either, because that is how you get your marriage registered in the Philippines with the NSO when you were married outside the Philippines. When you need copies of your marriage certificate, you order them from the NSO in the Philippines. Copies can be ordered on via the internet and paid for in US dollars. https://www.ecensus.com.ph/

Hi,

We married in the Philipine with the Philippino government(she is Philippino) and I sponsored my wife and she came here 4 weeks ago.

She received her Green Card and applied for Social Security card.

Now she asked "when would we registrate our marriage in the US?" she looked at other new friends and wanted the Marriage Certificate as registered in the US...

Please advise if we could do that..thanks.

[Penguin_ie 5,987]

Your profile mentions adjustment of status- are you sure that is correct? How did your wife get here?

If she wants a US marriage cert, you could approach your local church/ temple of choice and see if they would do a blessing ceremony with certificate, but it would not be a legal thing.