Just Jenney

Mark and I married in Richmond, Virginia in June 2003. I am the US citizen and he arrived on a K1 visa from the UK.

First we went to the County Courthouse and obtained a marriage license. I brought my drivers license, passport and certified divorce certificate. Mark brought his passport and certified UK birth certificate. We explained that Mark did not have a Social Security number, so the clerk just wrote "none" in that section next to Mark's name. We paid the $33 license fee in cash.

The license is good for 60 days, there is no waiting period (meaning you can get married immediately) and no blood test required.

For our wedding, we were married by the lake at the university I attended years before by a Justice of the Peace who was a retired judge. It was a non-religious wedding, which is what we wanted. The ceremony lasted about 15 minutes, plus about 10 minutes for him to complete the paperwork while we waited. It cost $100, which is a reasonable rate.

Normally the marriage officiant (the person who marries you) will return the marriage certificate to the courthouse him/herself. But if you do it that way, you have to wait a while before you can get certified copies of the marriage certificate, which you'll need for a variety of purposes (particularly AOS).

So we asked our officiant to simply give us the marriage certificate at the ceremony, and the next day we took it ourselves to the courthouse in person. We handed it to the clerk, who then made the 4 certified copies of the certificate per our request, which we paid for in cash. I recommend doing it that way, if you can.

~ Jenney