Gettin Hitched in France!

[ursulak]

Hello! Another confused and befuddled American here!

I've been

looking over some prior posts about marriage, and becoming alternately

frustrated and reassured, but never less confused. Instead of

extrapolating and potentially taking a wrong turn, I'm just going to

explain my particular situation and pray for the patience of all you

nice people, as I suspect my questions are not very dissimilar to many

that have already been answered here in detail. I appreciate any and

all wisdom anyone may have to share about my concerns. Thanks for

bearing with me!

So, here we go:

I entered France last

February (2008) as an au pair. The whole thing turned out to be a

nightmare, and by mid-April we had ended the contract. I heard rumors

that under those conditions I had one week to vacate the country, but

since no one at the prefecture actually said that to me, I opted to

stay on with my new boyfriend (a Frenchie through and through) until my

return ticket in September. So I guess question #1 is:

-under these conditions, do I even stand a chance of being re-admitted to France?

It's

a possibility that until now I've chosen to ignore, and therefore have

booked myself a return ticket for early January (2009).

My

boyfriend and I plan to marry once I arrive so that I may stay there

with him, that we can be together, happily ever after, etc. I am

acutely aware that the official legal way to do this is to get a "visa

de long sejour pour marriage", but due to our love-sick-puppy-dog

situation, and financial concerns that make it so that he does not have

access to documents proving his residency in a rented room (no electric

bills come with that flat rate he's paying!) -a requirement for my

would-be application, I have decided to just enter on a tourist visa,

and wing it. This decision was largely made based on some information

that caught my eye on a web forum similar to this one (or maybe it was

this one...) that cited a case where it is possible to marry after

living together in France for 6-months, and while the tourist visa

expires after 3-months, there were people who reported successfully

marrying after living together 6-months and having entered the country

on a tourist visa.

So my biggest question, and the thing I'm betting all my money on, is this loop-hole I heard about. (Pretty silly, huh?)

-Has anyone heard of this working? (Or happening at all?)

-Is

there any way to enter France on a tourist visa, marry, and go on

living in France, without being required to return to the States for a

visa before applying for a Carte de Sejour?

-Any idea if there are

time requirements/limits for completing the above steps? (i.e. "Must

marry within so much time of entry into France".)

I am most grateful to anyone who can shed any inkling of light on any of these questions. Thank you so much, and cheers!

Ursula

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

Sorry, I can't comment on your position in terms of visas and so on. What I do know is that getting married in France is a lot more complicated than you might expect, which in your case might make it almost impossible. When my intended (French) and I looked into it at the Mairie we were told that we needed huge amounts of paperwork (see the link below) and that I would need to be interviewed before we could get a marriage licence.

http://france.usembassy.gov/root/pdfs/paris-marriage.pdf

Unless there is some overriding reason why you must get married in France I would suggest that you look at the possibility of doing it either in the United Kingdom or in Jersey. We have decided to marry in Jersey because it's actually simpler than doing it in the town where we live.

http://www.gov.je/HomeAffairs/Registrar/Getting+Married+in+Jersey.htm

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/marriages/index.asp

[Gardian]

[quote user="ursulak"]I am acutely aware that the official legal way to do this is to get a "visa de long sejour pour marriage",
Ursula[/quote]

Ursula ...............

I can't help thinking that you've answered your own question.

Albert has given you some excellent links, in particular the one to your own Embassy's advice / instructions on 'what to do'.  To distill this:

• If this is what you want to do (and why not, after all?), then just go to the trouble of getting a marriage visa before you set sail for France. Pain in the backside, but ..........
• All the rest of the documentation sounds grim, but it's not that bad.  It's exactly the same for any other foreigner (well, for a Brit anyway), so just make a list and get on with it once you get here.  Nothing intellectually demanding nor impossible.
• Make sure that you bring your Birth Certificate and be prepared to have to have it formally translated.

In short, don't 'wing it' - just go through the formalities of getting the right pieces of paper. If you try to short cut or avoid something, then you risk running in to a brick wall. 

Re the possibility of just coming over, being here for 3-6 mths and then being able to marry ............ well, nobody on here is going to either know or advise you that that's a wise approach. If they did, it's reckless advice. Sure, it might have worked for somebody, but why take the chance?

Best of luck & pm me if I can help further.