marriage certificate question

[plim]

i have two questions:

 

1. when we got married, they gave us two marriage certificates. my question is when we translate/notarize, do we have to do both? because when we brought it to the notary they told us they knew what to do and made photocopies of both certificates, but we only received translations for 1 of them. did they really know what thye were doing?

 

2. do we need to provide proof of bona fide marriage when doing the initial i-130 filing? or is that later? is the marriage certificate enough as of this step?

[dnoblett]

1) make a photo copy of the translation for your records, NVC (I-130 filed through USCIS) OR consulate (DCF filing of I-130) needs only one copy of the marriage cert.

 

2) Not unless you have been married for some time and living together in China. Marriage cert and perhaps a few wedding photos are all that is needed if marriage is shortly before filing the I-130.

[Sadie]

1. When you get married in China you each get a certificate - they will probably only translate the certificate that belongs to the Chinese side - at least that is what they did for us.

 

2. I'm guessing that you are filing DCF. The USCIS office in Beijing sent me a checklist for the I-130 and there is nothing there about proof of marriage. We brought proof of marriage (photos etc.) but they didn't look at anything. We also brought our lease which has both our names on it to prove we had been living together and I had been living in Beijing.