Brazilian Beauty Married an American Gringo
November 1st, 2023
On November 1st, 2023, we got married. It was a very small and intimate elopement wedding in which the only ones in attendance were my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and Jessica’s close friend and colleague (Thuany traveled all the way from Sao Paulo!). We decided to marry at the “Old Orange County Courthouse” in Santa Ana where the process of receiving our marriage certificate was the fastest and easiest.
Immediately after being pronounced husband and wife. Photo by Cobalt & Chrome Photography.
You may be thinking, “how did they marry in the US when Jessica doesn’t have a visa or a green card? She is applying for a spouse visa after all, right?” Fortunately, she CAN marry in the US.
Jessica has a visa, a B1/B2 Visa. This allows her to visit the US as a tourist. She is limited to 6 months total time spent in the US every year for the duration of her visa. We can marry in the United States as long as she returns to her country of origin when her intended stay is over and before she is required to do so according to her current visa. If she does not return to Brazil after our marriage especially with the short time from our wedding date to when we submitted the I-130, a massive red flag will be detected by the USCIS. It is fully legal to marry in the US on a tourist visa. The K1 Visa is, in a sense, a visa with the pure intention of coming to the US to marry specifically within 90 days, after all.
United States B1/B2 Visa: Temporary Business Visitor/Tourism Visa
Our marriage was pivotal in the USCIS CR1 Visa application process as it is known as a “spouse visa” and the beneficiary must, as one may assume, be the spouse of his/her petitioner. An official copy of a marriage certificate must be submitted in order to complete the first step in the spouse visa and marriage green card process (Form I-130 “Petition for Alien Relative”). We explored multiple civil ceremony options: marriage through Los Angeles County (where I reside), Santa Barbara County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, the city of Las Vegas, and Utah County’s popular online marriage services.
We even explored getting married in Brazil, however, there are many requirements of the foreigner which would have been very time consuming. To marry in Brazil, the foreigner must provide a passport, birth certificate, and obtain a certificate of status. All documents must then be translated and legalized at a Brazilian consulate or embassy. A civil act of registering and signing documents before a notary is required for a marriage to be recognized by the Brazilian government. Then, we would have to get our Brazilian marriage certificate translated into English before it would be ready for I-130 filing. This appeared to be the longest and most expensive of all of our options.
Finally, After completing our research, we determined that Orange County was the best option and we will later describe our reasoning in detail. We fortunately received our official marriage certificate not even one full week from the date of our wedding.
LA County marriage certificate; marriage certificate required to submit as part of the I-130 application
Now that our marriage was complete and after a brief mini-honeymoon (aka “mini-moon”) in Palm Springs, we returned and put all of our focus and energy on completing the first step of the CR1 spousal visa application: Form I-130 “Petition for Alien Resident.”
Anxiously waiting for our ceremony to begin. Photo by Cobalt & Chrome Photography.
Initially, I did not think that this wedding would be very impactful. I was under the impression that this would feel more like checking off a box and our “next” wedding would feel more “real;” I thought that the outpouring of emotions would be reserved for our more proper and traditional wedding scheduled over a year away in Rio Grande do Sul.
I. Was. Wrong.
This small, cheap, intimate elopement wedding felt as “real” as it could and I will remember it forever as being one of the happiest days of my life.
At our wedding dinner after our wedding. Photo by Cobalt & Chrome Photography.
Ps. We would like to extend a special thank you to Cobalt & Chrome Photography for capturing our beautiful wedding day and to the wonderful owners of Mazal who gifted us with the most delicious chocolate cake for our wedding cake. Please support these businesses when in Los Angeles.
https://www.cobaltandchrome.com/gallery
https://mazal.la/