Getting Married to a Mexican Citizen in the USA

[the_ts]

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend and I are about to get married and begin the family class spousal sponsorship. She is a Mexican citizen and lives in Tijuana. I am a Canadian citizen. It is unlikely she will be able to get a visa to come to Canada so we are looking into our options getting married abroad. We have discovered that the process for getting married to a foreigner is relatively very complicated and expensive in Mexico, and would take at least 40 days to get all the documentation and permissions. Then we looked into getting married in San Diego (she has US multiple entry visitor visa), and discovered that it is really simple and short, even for foreigners.

So my main concern is if or not us getting married in the US when neither of us are US residents or citizens, would have any negative impact for our spousal sponsorship to bring her to Canada. If they would view it as a lack of commitment to go through the Mexican process, or it would not be valid, or any other reason you could forsee it negatively impacting the process. Or, hopefully, if a marriage is a marriage regardless of where it takes place?

Any thoughts will be highly appreciated. Thanks,
the_TS

[CharlieD10]

Canada will recognise your marriage wherever it takes place, so long as it is legally valid in the country it happens.  They would not likely infer anything from your getting married in a third country, especially where (as you mentioned) the requirements are time-consuming and complicated in one of your countries.

However, if convenience means that no-one else from your families will join you, and you and your fiancee are from a large and/or close-knit families, be sure to explain why you chose to marry somewhere that no-one else in your families could be present.  It might give the impression you are trying to "hide" the marriage from your respective families because it is not genuine.  That's about the only negative I can see there, but as I said it depends on what kind of wedding you are planning in the US and your particular family circumstances.

[rob21]

My spouse is also from Mexico and we looked at getting married in Mexico but, due to the issues you have stated and the cost, we chose to do it elsewhere. We had a private ceremony where we hired a marriage commissioners and literally grabbed 2 witnesses off the beach we had it done at. CIC never questioned our marriage however we did get letters from family memebers from both sides stating they were aware of our marriage and supported it.

[pinklady]

I also got married in the US, and my husband and I are both english. The reason we chose the US is because, like you stated, the process is relatively simple. Also to get married in UK, we would have to be resident for I think a minimum of 16 before the marriage plus you have to declare the intent to marry so people can object and you both have to be present for that. Its fine for me, but my husband was a PR of canada already and working and could not take a month off just so we could declare out intent. We also chose the US because we planned the wedding for Nov and we wanted it to be warm

After all that waffling, I just wanted to say that we had no problems....!

[saralune]

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend and I are about to get married and begin the family class spousal sponsorship. She is a Mexican citizen and lives in Tijuana. I am a Canadian citizen. It is unlikely she will be able to get a visa to come to Canada so we are looking into our options getting married abroad. We have discovered that the process for getting married to a foreigner is relatively very complicated and expensive in Mexico, and would take at least 40 days to get all the documentation and permissions. Then we looked into getting married in San Diego (she has US multiple entry visitor visa), and discovered that it is really simple and short, even for foreigners.

So my main concern is if or not us getting married in the US when neither of us are US residents or citizens, would have any negative impact for our spousal sponsorship to bring her to Canada. If they would view it as a lack of commitment to go through the Mexican process, or it would not be valid, or any other reason you could forsee it negatively impacting the process. Or, hopefully, if a marriage is a marriage regardless of where it takes place?

Any thoughts will be highly appreciated. Thanks,
the_TS

I married my peruvian husband in the US. We are still in process and have been for a long time for various reasons probably, but I have never heard it was a probem, and it never stressed me out. I don't think it s'an issue whatsoever. You can get married where you want. People marry aborad all the time, for x amount of reasons.