Can someone please tell me the difference between the two on the spousal sponsorship form? Does married physically present or not have to do with whether or not my wife and I were physically present on our wedding day?
Urgent Question: Married-Physically Present vs Married-Not Physically Present
- Thread starter Frank Thomas
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Both of you should be physically present during your marriage ceremony to be considered as physically present. In simple terms you both need to attend the wedding.
Married-Not Physically Present is exactly what you think, whether or not you were both physically in the same place when married.
As said above, by Canadian law you must be physically present to be married.
I imagine this form option is an easy way to filter out people who are married by proxy, Internet, etc., which is not permitted. (there are one or two exceptions but I believe they only apply to Canadian military service members.)
keesio
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yep. Marriage by proxy used to be accepted for weddings in certain regions (usually middle east and parts of south asia) but a few years ago, IRCC stopped accepting it.
My wife and I are married through virtual ceremony in the US during the lockdown, while both present in the same room - our officiant and witnesses joined by zoom... Are we considered physically present or not? It's so frustrating....
I believe you should be okay as 'physically present' refers to you both being together when married. (Marriage by proxy - the issue and type of marriage not accepted - was when someone would 'stand in' on behalf of the bride or groom who was not physically present and often in an entirely different country).
Sorry, I don't have any reference or further info as in places like US where this is being done now, it's quite new. But you can explain and I don't think it should be an issue that the officiant was in a different place - after all, this is how courtroom proceedings and even legislatures are working now - the main thing is that the bride and groom should be physically together. You may want to provide additional photos (screenshots?) and if you can find, information such as public announcements/official instructions on requirements for such weddings and their validity in the relevant state (this may be more than is needed but likely won't hurt).
I admit I don't know in detail how this works, did you have witnesses physically present with you? (Not saying this matters, I'm just curious).
Thank you for your reply! Our witnesses also joined by zoom, as they are our relatives from another state... I want to argue that the ceremony happened in our house and other people just joined remotely, but sigh, I might better off contacting IRCC directly? Suppose they don't recognize this and we have to move over as common law partner.. can we even get married? (Since we have legally binding marriage in the US already..)
Or perhaps we just need to host another ceremony since places are gradually open -- but we are stuck with the certificate where we held the virtual wedding
These are new situations and will likely depend on your exact ceremony and circumstances.
Again, I think the critical point is that both bride and groom were physically present together.
But I can't give solid answer, this is somewhat new. (And unfortunately I have heard rumours that in some states it may not be requirement that bride and groom be phsycially together for the ceremony, which if true will raise some really thorny issues).
You can try calling IRCC but I do not know if there is a way to settle this in advance and I doubt the call centre would know.
I'd still start from base assumption that your ceremony, as conducted with both of you in same room, will be considered physically present. But I doubt anyone can give you a 100% answer (and I doubt ircc has yet dealt with enough cases to have formulated a position).
It's not clear if these "remote weddings" are considered "physically present" weddings in all circumstances in the US as it's basically one county in one state sensing a money-making opportunity and allowing officiants to conduct Zoom weddings anywhere.
These weddings aren't even recognized in other counties in that state much less other states. May have a serious issue with their recognition in Canada, if someone checks.
For simplicity sake - physically present means that the bride and groom were wed in the same room not in different countries. I doubt the fact that the officiant/witnesses being remote really matters...what matters is that husband and wife were together for their marriage. But, I can't say what IRCC thinks about that. Good luck.
Having looked into it a bit more, have to agree with this point. I still think the approach of bride and groom being physically present (with each other) is a reasonable approach to answering the physically present question.
BUT I was only aware of one or two states that seemed to have fairly strict rules about this (like all must be physically in state and resident there and other more strict conditions, like bride and groom physically together), and now I see there are other states whose rules implementing this are quite a bit less strict (potentially including some out of state).
Hopefully this will not affect many but there will surely be some unholy messes down the road that will be a legal nightmare to clean up.
Not much perhaps the person who asked this can do but try.
And a warning to others considering, you really, really should not do one of these virtual weddings if you don't want to risk issues with IRCC. IRCC could potentially decide they won't accept such weddings.