Go back to Brazil for a ceremony before returning to get legal married in Canada

[CanadaBrazil]

Hi,

My fiance is on a visitor visa - currently in and out of Canada and the USA (where my parents are).

Would it be do-able for us to go back to Brazil and have a religious marriage ceremony before returning to Canada and getting LEGALLY married.

On the spousal application form you need to put the details of your ceremonies (including dates).

Do you think that immigration would look at the date and see she had a ceremony in Brazil (non-legal) BEFORE returning to Canada as a single person... would they have an issue with that? Also would they ask at the order when she returned to Canada if she planned to get married? They did not ask before when she came through immigration the first time.

Thanks

 

[MiriamT]

Hi,

My fiance is on a visitor visa - currently in and out of Canada and the USA (where my parents are).

Would it be do-able for us to go back to Brazil and have a religious marriage ceremony before returning to Canada and getting LEGALLY married.

On the spousal application form you need to put the details of your ceremonies (including dates).

Do you think that immigration would look at the date and see she had a ceremony in Brazil (non-legal) BEFORE returning to Canada as a single person... would they have an issue with that? Also would they ask at the order when she returned to Canada if she planned to get married? They did not ask before when she came through immigration the first time.

Thanks

You can always attach and extra piece of paper and explain your situation. You won't get penalized for having a civil wedding and a religious ceremony separately.

However, unless something changed in the years I've been away, religious ceremonies in Brazil have the same legal effect as a civil ceremony thus according to Brazilian law you'd be married at that point and would get it registered in the cartório like anyone else. I'd recommend checking and making sure first if the religious ceremony you're planning to have really doesn't have legal effect, because if it still does then you wouldn't need to have a civil wedding in Canada (by which I mean the paper-signing only, not referring to other ceremonies if you decided to have a second one for the North American friends and family who couldn't travel to Brazil).

 

[DanSlh]

As MiriamT said, I'm just confirming: a religious weeding in Brazil have legal effect.
Once you marry in a church, you are legally married.

 

[MiriamT]

As MiriamT said, I'm just confirming: a religious weeding in Brazil have legal effect.
Once you marry in a church, you are legally married.

Not only church. OP never mentioned their religion, and the law is extended to all religions in the country.

 

[MiriamT]

I'm reading up the Civil Code right now, and CanadaBrazil and fiance have two options: to have a religious ceremony with civil effect (becoming legally married right then and there), or to have a religious ceremony and later on have a civil wedding (or vice-versa). The couple's choice was the latter.

I stand corrected. My opinion remains the same as in my first line in the first post: "[y]ou can always attach and extra piece of paper and explain your situation. You won't get penalized for having a civil wedding and a religious ceremony separately."

All the best.