Do you work in the Philippines Embassy in Madrid?

Questions about marrying in the Philippines and bringing my wife to the USA (From Philippines)?

• My girlfriend and I are getting married later this year. She currently lives in and is a citizen of the Philippines. I'm trying to find out all the requirements and information and process for this. I've looked throughout the internet, I've contacted the embassy, who redirected me somewhere else, I contacted them also, but they have yet to respond. So I have a few questions that I would like to ask here on Yahoo. 1.) What documents do I need to bring with me to the Philippines from the USA? Birth certificate? State ID? Passport? Drivers license? What items do I need? 2.) Is there anything I need to do here in the USA before I travel to the Philippines to marry her? Do I need to visit the local embassy here to fill out paperwork? 3.) What are the requirements of my Filipino girlfriend? What does she need to do before we can get married? She doesn't have any children and she's never been married before. Is there any paperwork she needs to fill out prior to my arrival in the Philippines? 4.) How long does it usually take to get married in the Philippines? As I've said, I don't have a lot of time to take off work to visit the Philippines. So I'm trying to find out how long it should take and if I'm able to get enough time off work to make this happen, or if I'll have to wait until I'm able to get enough time off work. 5.) I read that we have to do marriage counseling. Is that true? Or only true in some cases? I read that if we don't do marriage counseling, we have to wait 3-months before we can get married. What are the rules on that? 6.) I also read that it's possible (perhaps in certain cases) for her to get the marriage license before I arrive in the Philippines. If this is true, that would be great! As there is a 10-day waiting period between the time we get the license to the time we're allowed to get married. If this is only in special cases, what are the requirements to do this? It's hard to find enough time off work to fit all this in. 7.) I would love to hear from and/or possibly to speak to an american man who has done this already. Who has married a foreigner before and brought her back to the USA. Especially a filipina. If you're unable to talk via messenger, I would GREATLY appreciate it if you were able to write a short, somewhat detailed step-by-step guide for this process. (i.e. Go to the embassy in USA, tell them your intentions, fill out these documents, tell your filipina girlfriend to fill out these documents, yada-yada-yada.) If you're able and willing to talk with me and assist me on this, please let me know and I'll send you a private message giving you my Yahoo messenger ID. I have this worry that her and I will have set up all these plans, made all these arrangements, spent all this money and when I get there, I'll notice that I forgot something and we'll be unable to get married. The websites I've searched share different requirements. To those of you that have read all this, thank you. And to those of you who read all this and write a respectful and helpful response, I love you. :) Sorry, it's a bit long.

• Answer:

  There are a few components to your question and therefore the answer. There is the question of what it takes to get married and then the question of how she can immigrate to the U.S. Those are two separate questions. I only have knowledge about filing a petition for her to immigrate, but there is a great deal of information about getting married in the Philippines on the U.S. Embassy Manila webpage. See the 1st link below. Also, whenever you travel overseas you should always have your passport. General information about travel to the Philippines is available on travel.state.gov (2nd link). From that page, you can enroll with the State Department's Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), which is always a good idea when you go overseas - in case anything goes wrong. First of all, get it out of your head that she will just come back with you to the U.S. right after the wedding. That is impossible. You will first have to file an I-130 petition with USCIS and wait for that to get processed. (3rd link) Once the petition is approved, it will get forwarded to the U.S. Embassy in Manila for the immigrant visa interview. Once that whole process has finished, she can immigrate to the U.S. and will have a green card on arrival. If you are a U.S. citizen, this process (CR-1 visa) will likely take (very roughly) about a year. If you have a green card, then it (F2A visa) will probably take 2-3 years before she even gets her visa interview. (4th link)