Jamaican Wedding License in Italy
June 27, 2013 1:03 PM   Subscribe

I've taken an exciting job in Italy! Everything has gone well with the immigration process for me, but I'd also like my wife to get here too...

We were married in Jamaica, which has not signed the Apostille Convention. That has led to a lot of confusion: what is it that we need to do for the Italian government to recognize our wedding license. You are not my italian immigration lawyer, but can you help me make some sense of non-apoistille immigration?
posted by bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated to Law & Government (7 answers total)
 
Dude, if you don't have, you are gonig to NEED an Itallian Immigration lawyer. Some folks may have some parts of the answer for you, but this is tricky and sometimes it's well worth it to pay for expert advice.

Congrats on your new job!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:04 PM on June 27, 2013 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Not thread sitting, but there is staff at my job who has handled every aspect of my (extremely normal) immigration process. They just don't have any idea what needs to be done to have Italy respect my Jamaican wedding license. The Jamaican embassy has been unhelpful so far as well...

I forgot to mention, if it matters, that my wife and I are both US citizens.
posted by bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated at 1:10 PM on June 27, 2013


Can you get legally remarried in the US? This may end up being the cheapest and simplest route.
posted by Adridne at 1:47 PM on June 27, 2013


Yes, if nothing else, then the solution may be to get married in a way that Italy recognizes. You could meet her in Gibraltar for example. Thats where I got married. You book a few weeks in advance. Bring a few documents, swear some oaths in front of a judge and 1-2 weeks later they'll send you a marriage certificate with an apostille.
posted by vacapinta at 2:10 PM on June 27, 2013


Just skylarking, but have you tried contacting the Italian embassy in Jamaica (or their web page)? Surely Italians have this problem too.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:38 PM on June 27, 2013


With the big disclaimer that this has come from Google...

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, I concluded that you need to have the marriage papers 'legalised' by Jamaica. It seems what you were 'supposed' to do (since you obviously knew you were moving to Italy) was to get married in Jamaica and take your marriage certificate to the Italian consulate there, who would confirm it was real, confirm the official who issued it had the authority to issue it, translate it to Italian and stick some stamps on it. At that point, I think it is 'official' in Italy.

Googling 'legalise foreign marriage certificate italy' got me to this page from some immigrant rights organisation (by the looks of it). That says you might be able to take it to the Jamaican consulate in Rome (who seem to have no website; this is the New York consulate's listing of other consulates which has the address/phone number), get them to tell the Italians it's real (and maybe translate it) and then have Italy legalise it.

Given that your employer seems to be handling all your immigration stuff, maybe telling them 'it needs to be legalised' will give them a push in the right direction. It looks like the Italian word for 'legalisation' is 'legalizzazione'. (Have they never employed a married Canadian? It's seemingly the same thing, but you have the added wrinkle of (presumably) not being able to go to Jamaica easily.)
posted by hoyland at 4:09 PM on June 27, 2013


If you're still in Boston, as your profile says, it might be worth phoning the Italian and Jamaican consulates in New York and seeing if this can be sorted there (i.e. with the Jamaicans persuading the Italians it's real so they can translate/legalise it, even though they're in New York and not Jamaica).
posted by hoyland at 4:14 PM on June 27, 2013


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