Marriage sacramental but not legal?

[otjm]

My wife and I had one.

She’s Canadian and I am American. We got married in her parish in Ontario.

But by the time the wedding rolled around, the INS paperwork to bring a wife into the US hadn’t arrived. If we were legally married, that would change her standing from just being a normal Canadian who can cross the boarder at anytime, to a spouse of a US citizen who needed a specific type of Visa.

So the priest witnessed our Sacramental union, but we did not sign or file the marriage license (then).

The INS paperwork arrived while we were off on our honeymoon and , we did a JoP with two friends and filed the paperwork.

It does not appear, however, to be an issue of committing a fraud upon either governement, but rather a matter of timing of a bureaucratic issue of paperwork. Had you delayed the wedding, the results would have been the same.