Help Please! American Marrying a Canadian in Quebec and will live in America

[lamd82]

I live in Kansas City and my fiance in Quebec. He is a native there. we want to get married in Quebec so his family can all attend and my parents as well. we will be living in Kansas City and so plan to have a reception here for the rest of my family. but i am confused by some of the steps we have to go through in order to get married.

One site i looked at said that we had to have an interview with the ceremony officiant to settle pre-marriage formalities. is it required that i be there for that appointment? Are there any other steps we need to take before we marry?

I also saw that in Quebec, when you get married, the woman keeps her own last name. does that apply to me even though i am not Canadian? i want to take my fiance's name.

I appreciate any help you can give me! I have left word with 2 attornies here in Kansas City but have yet to hear back from them.

Thanks!

 

[Kedeisha]

when you get married you have to obey the laws of where u get married my friend is married in quebec and she too cannot/didnt chnage her last name as it wasn't an option for her if you will be living in Quebec that would apply too however if you change your name in KC that will be fine as well

you can find other officiant that may be able to marry you without pre-marital formalities

 

[QCSunshine]

We got married in Quebec. You can choose to be married either in a civil ceremony or a religious (Catholic) ceremony. We did civil. We had to post our intent to marry (it is a specific form we had to fill out) in the actual venue we were getting married for the 21-ish days before the ceremony. We had a family member act as officiant for the ceremony and he told us this and helped us figure out the legalities. There is a process where a person can apply to become an officiant for the days and are legally able to perform the ceremony.

Here is a page about getting married in Quebec and includes information about officiants:
http://www.justice.gouv.qc.ca/english/publications/generale/maria-a.htm

About the name change:
Marriage name changes are not recognized (or allowed) in Quebec (even if the marriage and/or name change occurred in another location). However, if you happen to meet the specific criteria for a non-marriage based name change, that could be a possibility:
http://www.etatcivil.gouv.qc.ca/en/change-name.html