Getting married in Mexico: Russian and American

[Dsam 1]

On 5/2/2021 at 7:28 PM, Strawberrymermaid said:

Hello! I wanted to share my experience getting married to my Russian husband in Mexico. It was actually a fairly easy process. ❤️ I went the resort route but there’s another nice girl that went the wedding planner route, maybe she can share her experience if she feels comfortable! 
 

Note: each state in Mexico has different requirements. These are the requirements from Quintana Roo (Cancun area)
 

Where: We went the resort route and got married in Cancun. I felt like going this route was helpful because they take care of all the legalities, paperwork, and blood tests for you. The resort was pretty terrible at communication until we got there and then it was amazing. It was expensive but it was worth it. 
 

Flights: At this time Turkey and Russia still had flights operating between them so he flew Turkish airlines. I imagine now the hardest thing would be finding a flight but you could probably transit through Europe as long as it doesn’t go through the US at any point. I flew Delta, super easy flight. 

Time requirements:

Bride and Groom must be in Mexico 3 business days before wedding. Arrival day and wedding day don’t count. 
Bride and Groom must both be divorced for at least a year. We have both never been previously married so this didn’t apply to us. 

 

Documents needed: 

- Tourist cards (they give you these on the plane to Mexico. Don’t lose them!)

- Copies of both passports 

- Blood test. They did this at the resort. I felt very safe and it wasn’t sketchy or anything in case someone is worried about that. They test your blood for STDs and HIV Etc. 
- Witnesses. There must be 4 witnesses who have also been in Mexico for 3 business days. However, the resort can provide these for you. Some do it free of cost and others do it for like 25-50 dollars per person. 
what you DONT need: apostille birth certificates. It says online you need this and I was freaking out because I wasn’t sure my husband could get this from his hometown. We didn’t end up needing it. 
 

Other info:

- Get your marriage certificate translated to English, again the resort did this for us. 

- For US purposes you do not need an apostille. You can apply for I-130 without it. For Russia, you do need it. It took us like 3-4 weeks after the wedding to get, she mailed it to my house. It was also like 500 dollars 😅. 
- Russia also is very particular about translations and such. The husband or wife in Russia will need to get it translated there, notarized there too. You cannot get it translated in Mexico or the US and then try to send it there. They need it translated in Russia and notarized by a Russian notary. 
- While it’s tempting to switch from K1, it’s a different beast. With the I-129f, all applications (well most) pretty much go to one service center, California. You know within 5-8 months it will most likely be processed. The vast majority at least. The I-130 can go to 5 service centers and you don’t get to pick. From what I can see, they also don’t tell you when they transfer them and processing times are all over the place. Like you could be waiting for uscis to process it anywhere from 2 months to 3 years. There’s a very lucky few who seem to get processed in 2-3 months while most others wait around a year a more. They also tell everyone that you are at Nebraska online (which seems so exciting), but surprise it’s elsewhere and you have to call or ask Emma to check. So you will be waiting a while and must be patient. Just keep that in mind. ❤️
- It’s also slightly complicated to get a private visa right now to visit in Russia, if you don’t already have a tourist visa or some other document allowing you to travel there. You must have all the right copies and translations of everything which can take awhile. We got married in February and still haven’t gotten everything we need as the research is extensive and hard to figure out. But we are about to get to the end and I’m applying for one soon. They are also only issuing 1 or 2 time entry 90 day visas right now. 
 

hope that helps!!! Good luck everyone. 

Thank you so much for this informative post, how much did your wedding planner cost if only you and your spouse with the witnesses attend the marriage.?

[Karjala 3]

I do not recommend getting married in Mexico now.

From what I've heard, Russians are being assigned to embassies in the countries of marriage now and you do not want to be assigned to Mexico. My experience: they make Russians wait in the line with locals. There is no way of expediting it, unless somebody is actively dying.

The information I found too late in the process in the Mexican FB group is that the wait time is about 15 month there for U.S. citizen spouses. I've been trying to transfer the case to U.S. embassies in other Latin American countries, but they are overloaded as well.

 

Try a different route.

 

P.S. Israel denies entry at the airport the majority of the time. My husband was able to get it, because he had the U.S. immigration interview notice and a picture of me with my U.S. passport.

[k0nstantin 3]

Instead of going the Mexico route you might want to consider getting married online through the Utah county process: https://www.utahcounty.gov/dept/clerk/marriage/onlinemarriage.html

 

The advantage is that you get a US marriage certificate, which is instantly verifiable and doesn't need a translation or an apostille. The disadvantage is that you don't get a "real" wedding, which may be a deal-breaker for some people.

 

One important thing to remember with online marriages is that you are required to consummate the marriage after the ceremony but before filing I-130. In practice this means that you are required to provide evidence that you and your spouse were in the same location during or after the ceremony.

Edited October 3, 2023 by k0nstantin