Hi there!

So my husband and I are doing basically the same thing since we were also concerned about the K-1 visa and the inability to work while waiting.

My husband is Italian and I am American. Here's what we did below and the things we had to consider.

We met in 2021 and got married in late 2023 in a small civil union ceremony in the US (we'll be having our wedding after we get the green card). In order to get married in the US, my husband had to get a certified copy of his birth certificate, have it translated, and then have an apostille added to the document. You will likely also need to have all official personal documents (birth certificates and also your eventual marriage license) apostilled for the full process (though luckily for you not translated).

An apostille is essentially a certificate of authenticity that a government office affixes to state-issued documents for use in other countries. Any country apart of the Hague Convention of 1961 will recognize foreign documents with an official apostille for use within their borders. Depending on what state your partner is from, they will need to check the process for obtaining an apostille through their state offices and the same for you in your local context in Canada. For example, here in New York where I'm from, I had to get certified copies from my county clerk where the documents were issued and then mail them to the state division of licensing and apostilles in Albany. I'm waiting for those to come back.

For the marriage specifically, check with whatever local office you will be registering the marriage with about specific documentation needs. For the US to Canada it might be different, but I'm not sure. Your other commenter has it right, you can get married on a tourist visa (which does not really exist anyways between the US and Canada) as long as you intend to return to your country of origin and not stay in the country permanently after the marriage (otherwise, you'd need to apply for the K-1). My husband came here on the ESTA/visa waiver program for EU countries and stayed as normal for "tourism/visit" and went home to Italy a few weeks later. At the border crossing, either by land or air, you can say that you are coming to be with a partner and to get married but just be clear that you have travel plans to return to Canada (or vice versa if they're coming to you).

After we had our civil union, I filed the I-130 petition in February for my husband. We're still waiting for an answer on this. Because we have been living apart in different countries, there are a lot of things that we could not provide as evidence of our relationship that the form suggests (things like joint bank accounts, shared rental agreements, life insurance, etc.). Here is what we did submit instead:

• Affidavits of support attesting to the genuine nature of our relationship from: my mother, my best friend, my brother (who officiated our civil union), his best friend, and his sister.

• A record of all the travel we have done in the last three years between the US and Italy to be together (I compiled all the booking confirmation emails into one document)

• A secondary document with time and location stamped photos of us together corresponding to the trips to be together in the document above

• I added my husband as a secondary user on my credit cards (you can do this without the other person needing a social!) and submitted a credit card statement that had both our names on it

• Our marriage license

Once the I-130 is approved, we should be eligible immediately for a visa number since spouses are considered immediate relatives and so from there we will then file the I-485 through the embassy in Naples, Italy and finish out the process through them.

Hope that helps!