Let’s discuss the difference between civil ceremonies and religious ceremonies, mostly describing the wedding ceremony process and how that impacts how immigration views that. Those two things are very different.

A civil ceremony would be basically making that wedding legal in the eyes of the law. You usually have some type of a designated civil servant who is in that authority signing as someone who has performed that wedding or that ceremony so that would be legal in the eyes of the law.

A religious ceremony is really in the eyes of the deity or whatever deity and god you are performing under; that you culturally are performing that wedding ceremony. The short of the matter is that usually religious ceremonies are not legally valid for immigration purposes.

This could be usually for a wedding to be lawful or recognized by US immigration, it would have to be lawful or legal in the country or state that it was performed in. For most areas, this does not include religious ceremonies or cultural ceremonies unless they have been registered with the civil authority. You kind of have to do both.

There can be problems that arise and so, we always caution people in regard to having a civil ceremony or a cultural ceremony in the country that you are performing the cultural ceremony in.

There are countries in the EU and others, especially smaller countries, where that religious officiant is considered or designated a civil authority. At the same time that you are performing a religious ceremony, you’re also performing that civil one as well.

Whether or not this is an issue really is dependent on your circumstances. What are you trying to prove? Are you trying to prove that you had a valid marriage or are you trying to prove as in the fiancé visa route that you are free to marry and that was not a valid marriage? We see those problems come into effect when someone has filed for that fiancé visa and then they performed a religious ceremony in their home country to celebrate an engagement per se and then, immigration comes back and says you’ve had this ceremony so you are no longer free to marry even if it’s that same person that’s on that fiancé visa.

If you’re married, that then voids that fiancé visa and you have to start over with the spousal petition so it does add a lot to the evidence and what’s required to try to combat or alleviate those concerns that USCIS or immigration has in regards to that.

Another instance would be for one example a Hindi marriage. A lot of times, those do not have to be registered to be considered to be valid and there are other countries as well that fall into that same respect. If there is any evidence of that religious or cultural ceremony in those countries where it doesn’t have to be registered to be legally or lawfully married, again that could cause issues.

We like to steer clear of those cultural or religious ceremonies or ceremonies of any sort if you have a fiancé visa on file. That way, we know that we’re safe in the eyes of immigration and that no one could misconstrue that ceremony that you had or that you consider maybe a celebration of engagement but then immigration decides that there is cause for them to maybe construe it as the wedding or marriage itself.

That’s the long and the short of the religious versus civil wedding ceremonies and how that can become concerning to immigration. Again, it comes down to you trying to prove that you’re married or you trying to prove that you’re not married. Very circumstance specific based on your case.