Convenience Weddings

[snow_girl]

Sparked by a comment in another thread, I got curious as to what your opinions are on getting married for visa purposes and convenience. Would you marry your SO to be together or would you wait it out for a proper wedding? Do you think it would put an added pressure to moving in with your SO for the first time?

I've had thoughts about how much easier being together would be if we just headed to city hall and got married but he has made it clear that as much of a pain in the butt visas are he wants to wait and do it because we both want to be married (I plan on only doing it once) not because its the easy way.

[Silviar]

I think sometimes people don't consider that the two can go hand-in-hand. As someone who's been slogging through all of the visa stuff, I can tell you there's absolutely NOTHING 'convenient' about the fiancee/spouse visa process to any country. After the medical/background checks, proving available funds for support, relationship truthfulness, interviews, notarized character statements (to prove you're a good person), and then the chunk of money you sit down just for the visa itself, I don't possibly see how anyone can find it convenient.

Ok, sorry, off soapbox...

To the heart of your question - I think that people in the end don't get married for convenience - they get married because either they're in love, or they're one of those rare scam artists who wants a free pass into the country. For some people, they just don't want the added expense of a wedding, or may not be able to afford having a wedding in the visa's timeline because of the strict rules around timing. For others, they're able to afford it in one go and want to do it that way. I think it usually comes down to money, which rules just how much convenience a person possesses.

Myself, I look at legal and spiritual ceremonies as two separate but necessary items. I don't know if we'll be doing them at the same time or not. Our problem stems from having two sets of very loving families, and each family would have to pay a butt-ton of money to fly over to the other's country. So we've considered everything from two weddings, to one wedding, two receptions, one legal ceremony and then a big wedding... all the combinations have been put on the table at some point. In the end, everyone has to decide what in their ceremony planning is their priority.

[Stina83]

This is a really interesting topic.. I'm very interested to hear what others have decided with this?
My SO and I are currently talking about how to do this too. We're an international couple, so we have the same problem with families flying out and all that. And plus, I live in Denmark with the toughest visa rules in Europe probably, and he's American.. not exactly the best combo here. We would both just like a nice wedding (not out of convenience, but because we both want to - I agree with Silviar on that). But we have no idea on how to do this.. we could do it the JOP way, and then get married 'for real' again later.. neither of us know how we feel about that yet though. So it would be real interesting to hear how other people solve this problem??

[mllebamako]

Well, first of all, I think that convenience marriages aren't the same as what we're describing here. A marriage of convenience is usually solely for someone's benefit without a relationship/love. So like people who get married to a stranger or a friend for immigration purposes and what not. I am 100% against that.

What we're talking about here is basically moving things along quicker than you would have if you hadn't had certain legal barriers to go through. And this, I am for. I am not saying that a brand new couple who is totally unsure if they want to get married someday should run out and get married so one can have a visa.
But in the case of a couple who is already moving down the road toward marriage but maybe shortens the timeline by a few months or even a year...I support that. But I do think that the couple should feel "ready" for the marriage step before they take it. Which means...I guess they would just be getting married anyway (not "convenience" style).
Oh now I've gone and confused my own opinion.

I guess I'm against it unless the couple feels ready to marry. But I am for it if they are just quickening things by a few months or a year.

Confused? Yeah me too. Maybe I'll come back later when I make sense.

[Caitlin2009]

Well in my case i want to get married to Denise, its something we have wanted since the beginning and the only way i can get the settlement visa to move with her is to marry her and i wanna marry her because i love her with all my heart, and i also wanna be with her under one roof sooner. If wanting to get married to her for that reason is a bad thing then i guesse im a bad person but thats the only way for us, she cant move to the US with me at the moment because there are no visa's for same sex couples so for us this is the only thing we can do!

[Moon]

I don't plan on ever getting married again, and I have no real reason where it would become necessary (not having more children, for example.) But, if that were the only way to be with the person I love, I would consider it after a good, long thinking process. I'd have to be damn sure he'd be the one I'd be with forever though, and I'm not convinced I could ever be sure of that.

[Zephii]

There's another thread about this in the weddings section, so you can compare older posts to newer ones.

I agree with the "it's not convenient" sentiment. Visas make me want to stab myself in the face with a fork. But that aside, I'm against marrying to be in the same country, at least for myself. Religiously I believe you should live with your SO for a year before you tie yourselves together legally. But, I also know that it's very possible to simulate living together via the internet and long visits if a full year isn't possible. Obi and I are lucky, both our countries allow a defacto/common law partner visa and working holiday programs. Canada and Australia don't give a rats arse if you're married or not, and that works for me but I bet I'd change my tune if there was no other way to be together.

I don't know, perhaps we'd have stayed LD even longer if we had to get married to live in the same country. Marriage is serious shit. Marriage isn't the end of the road. Marriage does not equal "happily ever after", but so many people act as though it does. I would try to find another way first, and if that wasn't possible I'd insist we take pre-marital courses together to bridge some of the knowledge we're missing out on. Actually, I recommend the courses anyway!

[sabby64]

If I was in an international relationship with Brandon I would probably have two weddings, a small one so we could live together and then my dream wedding sometime after so that we still get that experience. I wouldn't mind getting married just to live together but I would definitely need something bigger after that.

[prinzeza87]

i agree w mllebamako, i wouldn't get marry for convenience, or just to b together. in my case, we do have plans of getting marry when he finishes his deployment in japan, so that would b like almost 3 yrs from now, that's ok, no hurries even thou is hard to b apart.
b4 Robert i've never though on having a big wedding and all that, now he does inspire me to have a big one, USMC style! now i do see myself in a beautiful wedding dress and him dressed in his blues marine uniform.

[lucybelle]

I do believe I am the one that "sparked" this thread, so I'll throw in my piece

I'm for convenience marriages. But, I find that I am pretty unconventional in my relationship opinions. I completely agree that visas are not an "easy" path, but I was 100% okay with marrying my SO so that he could live here with me. I figured if it didn't work out, we'd get a divorce. Yeah, I know divorces aren't that simple either. But I'm so young I feel like now is the time for me to make rash decisions like this. Plus, if he would then like to stay in the USA, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I talked with my family about it and they were all okay too. I am not a religious person at all, so to me marriage isn't so much as a "unity" as it is a document, different health care, and different tax forms. That's a pretty crass way to look at the most "important day of your life", but that's how I feel.

My SO is different. Even though he isn't religious either, he feels that marriage is a lot more important. He wants to wait to get married for the "right reasons". So we didn't do it.

The funny thing is, he's already told me he wants to marry me. And there's no way I can promise that to him yet. So I'm working on getting a work visa to his country instead of him being denied over and over to get one here

[KatyCakes10]

My SO and I are engaged, but we don't plan on getting married for about another year. When we are ready, we're going to just go to city hall at first. Since I'm in school, we want to wait to have an actual wedding until we have the time and money. I'm not a religious person, nor am I rich at the moment. So it just makes sense to us to wait to have the real wedding. I want to marry him because I can't see myself being with any one else. I wish it was easier for us to be together sooner, but I know we will make it.

[nicole]

I'm going along with lucybelle with thinking this was sparked by my situation on my thread from yesterday.... so I will say my peace too.

For International couples, you cannot have a marriage which DOESN'T involve a visa in some shape or form. It's either impossible or illegal. I would be in no way considering a K-1 visa or a spouse visa if I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with my SO. We're getting engaged properly in June, and we are picking a route whether or not I can come back on a student visa or we have to start the K-1 visa process, after we are engaged. Meaning we are going to get married no matter what. It may look like the K-1 visa is a "convenience" marriage on the, but believe me, go look at the entire process on visajourney and tell me what part of that route is convenient. Around $2500-3000 has to be paid in the space of 7-10 months, and I cannot see my SO unless he spends yet more money to come see me in that time, as I won't be able to enter the country. NOT convenient at all.

[toggle]

I spoke to my SO about this, and at first i was thinking it wasnt very romantic. but then he said, well we would be getting married so that we could be together, and there's no better reason than that. this made me change my mind and think actually it is a romantic thing to do