# The USA is forcing me to get married Monday! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 14, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087 "2003-02-14T16:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/1 "2003-02-14T16:38:51Z")
Yes indeed. The wedding between me and MrsB that was scheduled to take place in July has been moved up to Monday February 17. It’s going to be legal, quick, and dirty, taking place in the marriage commish’s house-- or on the beach if it’s not raining. No wedding gown, no tux, no rings-- because we’ve got no time for that! It’s all going down on the advanced schedule because MrsB-to-be will be doing a post-doctoral fellowship in New York this fall, and we found out Wednesday her school won’t even consider attempting to get me a visa unless we’re married. Since we don’t want to wait until late July to start dealing with bureaucracy, we’re having a snap ceremony now. Good thing I already had Monday off-- but I did have to cancel a dentist appointment 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/2 "2003-02-14T16:51:43Z")
Damn, not only do you not get to have the big ceremony, but now you’re going to owe the dentist office $40 as well. Sucks to be you. Oh, and congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/3 "2003-02-14T16:52:32Z")
Congratulations! Shotgun weddings can be fun sometimes. 🙂 A couple friends of mine are getting married today; they emailed the invitations out yesterday. They were planning on getting married “sometime soon;” he got the Call yesterday afternoon, so they’re going to get hitched in… two hours. [sub]so howcome you call her **Mrs** B? Is it just easier to type than **Fiancee** B, or **Intended** B?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/4 "2003-02-14T17:16:30Z")
> [@](#): > > [sub]so howcome you call her **Mrs** B? Is it just easier to type than **Fiancee** B, or **Intended** B?[/sub] > [@](#): > > It’s all going down on the advanced schedule because **MrsB-to-be** … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Opengrave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/919ad9/32.png) [@Opengrave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opengrave)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/5 "2003-02-14T17:50:18Z")
My cousin had one of these type weddings because of the first gulf war. They eventually had a big church wedding on their fifth wedding anniversary, the kids were the flower girl and ring bearer! ---
**Author:** ![acrossthesea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@acrossthesea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acrossthesea)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/6 "2003-02-14T18:39:24Z")
I got married under similar circumstances…the military does not allow non-married people to live on base together. So we were going to get married as soon as possible, which turned out to be a few months after I moved here. A few months of endless “visitor” passes. Japan gives americans a 90 day tourist visa automatically, which was about to run out. We were finally forced to get married in july the day before it ran out. No wedding, nothing. Just signing some paper at the city hall office offbase which had to be translated into english to be legitimate. We’ll have a real wedding when we’re back in the states (3 years from now) but I still wish we could have had something more…solid? Make sure you have an actual wedding someday, it sucks to skip that. ---
**Author:** ![Scotticher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Scotticher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scotticher)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/7 "2003-02-14T21:26:00Z")
My parents were married on February 17. They were married almost 58 years when mom died…they were best friends as well as lovers and had the best marriage of anyone I know. So I’d say that Feb 17 must be a good day to begin your married life together. Congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/8 "2003-02-14T21:44:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \* > **It’s all going down on the advanced schedule because MrsB-to-be…** Nope, sorry, he called her MrsB first. Primacy rules! ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/9 "2003-02-15T23:47:02Z")
I call her MrsB because we’ve been together for eleven years (celebrated our Anniversary two weeks ago, on the first). In my head (and hers too) we’ve been married for many years, but the US govt doesn’t recognize that for us slackers from Quebec 🙂 We’re down in Seattle this weekend with her aunt, uncle, and great-uncle, and in a couple of hours opening up some Millennium port to celebrate :eek: This stuff was aged 100 years before being bottled!!! Oh, and my dentist is really good about rescheduling, so no charges there 😃 Thanks everyone for the good wishes! ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/10 "2003-02-16T00:19:39Z")
Hey, congratulations! 🙂 I wish you both the best of luck… and having a real wedding later on will be a good thing too. (not that this isn’t, but you know what I meam) F\_X ---
**Author:** ![RickQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@RickQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickQ)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/11 "2003-02-16T02:58:55Z")
Good luck and Congratulations, **Barbarian** Brynda and I had to get married by a certain date that was dictated by the governemt because I am from the UK and I was here on a fiance visa. We had a legal wedding with a couple of friends as witnesses and then we had our actual wedding with family and the whole deal the following month. We consider our anniversary to be the second ceremony. It gave us more time to plan the wedding to do it this way. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/12 "2003-02-16T03:03:20Z")
Heh, the schnoogy and I are gonna have to do that one-legal-and-one-religious-ceremony thang too. We’ll need the civil union so he can finally immigrate, whenever that ends up happening… then the big romantic handfasting 🙂 (no, we’re not engaged. Yet. We’re engaged to be engaged, if you must know. It never hurts to be prepared. :D) ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usa-is-forcing-me-to-get-married-monday/155087/13 "2003-02-16T03:21:54Z")
Congratulations, Mistah B. Luckily we had everything lined up to coincide with the big bad American bureaucracy.