US Citizen marrying a Vietnamese in Que Son, Quang Nam

As illegal activity is forbidden on the forum, perhaps replies regarding cups of coffee could be discussed by PM only.

As for mental health - the dude's getting married so that would appear to be in question.

Fred, get a life! Who are you the Vietnam FBI. You get nauseating with your silliness. To the OP. The people at the Justice department do like to drink coffee. Many things can be arranged over a cup of coffee. Malaysian people have no clue what goes on in Vietnam. No it does not  take any mandatory time. But all the US documents will have to be translated. You can get that done in Vietnam in a couple of days. Or your friend can get them translated before he comes. The mental health exam is quite fun a comical. No need to worry about that. I am not sure how one can prove a negative e.g certificate of no marriage. I think the U.S. Embassy provide him with a sworn notarized statement that he has never been married. That is he makes a statement under oath to the embassy officer and then they will notarize it. I think the notary fee is $50 at the embassy. He must go online and make an appointment with the embassy in HCMC. They have appointments in a two week window looking forward. Good luck and enjoy the coffee. By the way there are translators outside the office where all this marriage license stuff is done. Tell them your own personal interest in coffee and they can hook your friend up.

Getting it all done in 4 weeks, I doubt it very much.It took us 4 months to do the paperwork due to the inept officials who have no idea as to what the process is.

Agree with Diazo, Fred you need to lay off whatever it is that youre consuming, some of your posts are ridiculous.

https://vn.usembassy.gov/wp-content/upl … ietnam.pdf

Boy Budman1 where the heck you been hiding? Thought you kicked the bucket. Not many of the old hands on here much anymore.

Note that there is more to the Affidavit of Single Status than the form itself.  http://vietnamembassy-usa.org/consular/ … gistration  This is embassy list list of required documents needed although Budman's list has a couple more.  I went through the tortured process of obtaining all these documents and having them legalized in D.C. and since then have found that most all are more easily done once you are in the country.  The only exception would be if you live in DC or one of the consular cities and can deal walk-in basis.  In Vietnam, the affidavit of single status can be notarized at the US Consulate or Embassy.  It will not need translation as it is a bi-lingual form.  However it will still need to be certified by the Vietnamese government after notarizing at the consulate.   

What is important and and is the only document that must be done at home is the document from your state government that indicates that you have not been married since age 18 or last divorce.  Marriage certificates in my state are issued by the Dept of Health.  Although like the OP, I never knew such a thing existed, the people there knew exactly what I needed.  I would expect you can get just such a certificate in your home state from whatever is the appropriate agency.  Just ask at whatever agency you would go to for birth, death, or marriage certificates.  The form will be an attachment to the affidavit and will need to be translated and certified as well, so it would be best to just bring it to Vietnam and attach it to the affidavit there.

Good luck on your deadlines though.  My certificate took a couple of weeks after submitting the application.  Things at that time were a little jammed up with people asking for Obama's birth certificate so they might be quicker now. 

Anecdotally, after I had gone through all these certifications, the official who handled our paperwork threw a couple of the documents in the wastebin and said that they weren't needed.  I wish I could tell you which ones they were. 

Vietnamkid wrote:

In addition, he has only 4 weeks in Vietnam.

Fly here, get married, go home? That's weird. 

Weird unless the goal is to immigrate. Money, immigration, Western baby. That is what is important.

Diazo wrote:

Weird unless the goal is to immigrate. Money, immigration, Western baby. That is what is important.

I once met a Viet Kieu who could be called a serial marrier.  He married, brought the girl to the US then divorced as soon as she hit the 5 year mark.  He had done it about 3 times.  The immigration interview is supposed to catch these situations but 

Right now I have been told that the going price in Honolulu given to a single man or lady to marry one of your relatives is $30,000.   The total cost for the phoney marriage is really more like $40,000 because the sponsor ends up paying for a few trips to Vietnam to make the marriage look real.  I was discussing this with a friend of my wife's who had an actually fairly attractive young lady lined up for her nephew who had a son as well.  I managed to convince her that if she really wanted to improve their lot, it would be better to use the money to buy them a nice apartment in Q. Thu Duc where they live.  I don't remember what his job was but it paid 12 million which in relative terms is probably better than a minimum wage job washing dishes in a Vietnamese restaurant in Honolulu.

Hey I sat right in the marriage license office with a very old fella who was marrying a VERY young girl with an infant. He had been paid $50,000 and was boasting about it. He just wanted to her the girl out. They had visited the head of the coffee  fund (Fred) and all was going to be just fine. Everything not as it seems at times here in paradise!!!!

THIGV wrote:

Right now I have been told that the going price in Honolulu given to a single man or lady to marry one of your relatives is $30,000.

Same price in CA -- $30K at the minimum.

Thank you everyone for your help.

The groom and bride are both in their 50s.  Old school friends.  He's Viet Kieu.  She has been a widow for over 10 years and her two daughters are all grown up, married, and moved away.  They met up again when he went home to visit his parents.  He has a job in the US that will give him a good pension that he can't give up.  Guess the magic was still there after 30 years.

It seems that we have strayed from the original topic but that is not bad in and of itself if the conversation is good.  We should assume that this is a real marriage and be sure all the OP's questions are covered.

Vietnamk wrote:

He needs help with getting the Certificate of No Marriage Record.  He doesn’t know how to get one.  Can someone help?

Hopefully he has already obtained the requisite document from CA and will be bringing it to Vietnam to add to the affidavit to be notarized and certified in HCMC.  Note that if you follow the link I posted earlier, you can download a copy of the form.

Vietnamk wrote:

In addition, he has only 4 weeks in Vietnam. .....He has been told that the mental health exam can be done in one day.

This needs to be done before they go in to make the actual application.  For where they are this may need to be done in Da Nang.  Maybe it can be done by a local physician but you may need to find one who speaks English.  For Da Nang, plan on one day minimum if all goes well.  More if it doesn't.

Vietnam wrote:

Does anyone know how long it will take to submit the rest of the paperwork and how long before the interview and receiving the marriage certificate?  He has been told that it takes 2 weeks by law.  Another source told him 3 days.

This has changed since I married.  Then it was at the Dept of Justice and the waiting period was a full month.  I have read here that the period is now two weeks and the location is the local party HQ.  In my case the interview centered on my wife's English ability.  At that time she was maybe a low intermediate English speaker.  Of course if the groom is a Viet speaker, this is not an issue. 

For time required, we went in and my wife showed our paperwork to a clerk and then set up the interview with someone the next step up a couple of days later.  The second visit where you actually sign the certificate, is stress free.  In our case it was officiated by the top dog at the office, who signed the certificate at that time.  It was actually quite nice and rather cordial with hot tea on a large meeting room table.  There was a local couple who were married at the same time.  I believe the waiting period is for all marriages and not only foreigners.  Actually not a bad idea.

Vietnam wrote:

How much coffee money to make things move quickly?

In my case none except the regular fees and a small fee for the translator who assisted in the interview and the final ceremony.  However, we were living in HCMC and were a 4 hour motorbike ride from my wife's hometown of T.P. Ben Tre which probably looks like a big city compared to any place in Quang Nam Province.  Consider that you could be dealing with officials who have never once dealt with a US/VN marriage.

I wish your friend luck but I sincerely doubt that you will get this all done with only 30 days touchdown to takeoff.

Edit:  I posted this without seeing the second post from Vietnamkid.  Considering the circumstances, the obstacles should be pretty easily overcome.  The schedule is still tight but it is doable.  Considering their circumstances, they hopefully should have a smooth time with US Immigration which will be their next step.  Best wishes.   

Hi,

Thank you for your help.

The link you provided is for the Affidavit of Single Status.  I didn't see anything about the Certificate of No Marriage Record.  Is there a particular form?

Than you again.

Vietnamkid wrote:

Hi,

Thank you for your help.

The link you provided is for the Affidavit of Single Status.  I didn't see anything about the Certificate of No Marriage Record.  Is there a particular form?

Than you again.

The affidavit you can download from the Embassy website is a Vietnamese document that you need to fill out, but the "Certificate of No-marriage Record", although capitalized as if it was a particular document may vary for both form and title from State to State and of course nation to nation.  As I mentioned previously, the office that creates it may not be the same in different states either.  I don't think the exact title and format is critical.  The document that I got from Hawaii was not particularly formal and was printed on plain white paper unlike the other certificates on green paper as you may have seen in Obama's case.  Unfortunately, I do not have a copy.

You may find if you continue with your return to practice in VN, that bureaucrats are sometimes more concerned with just having something to fill the space than they are with what the document actually says.

Vietnamkid wrote:

Thank you everyone for your help.

The groom and bride are both in their 50s.  Old school friends.  He's Viet Kieu.  She has been a widow for over 10 years and her two daughters are all grown up, married, and moved away.  They met up again when he went home to visit his parents.  He has a job in the US that will give him a good pension that he can't give up.  Guess the magic was still there after 30 years.

Awww 

Lets hope it all works out.

Good luck to the happy couple!

Just as an aside...... When we got married in Da Lat, or rather a few weeks before, we had to be questioned by some bloke, who would report back to the People Committee, who in turn would give us permission to marry. If permission was not granted, we would have gone to Laos, Cambodia, Thailand etc to., do it anyway.

The questions were easy enough -  e.g. "how do you communicate with your intended other half?" and so on. Then came the question to me: "This will be your third marriage, why so many?"

Me, before I could stop myself: " I like wedding cake".

The bloke wrote it down.

The Peoples Committee must have had a sense of humour as permission was duly granted.