Authenticating US Documents for Use Abroad

You may recall from one of our recent YouTube videos (Free Lance Travels) that we were attempting to register our US marriage in Thailand while on a recent visit. While we couldn't get one of the documents that I thought I needed ("never been married" affidavit), the embassy staff did provide me with instructions on how to go about getting our US marriage certificate authenticated - so that we could use it there in the Kingdom.

It was a multi-step process that would require me sending said certificate all the way back home so that the Mississippi Secretary of State could place the first level of authentication on it.  So...we mailed out...complete with self-addressed return envelope and money order - all the way from Japan.  The staff there were super-helpful and I had the document back in my possession in Japan in about a week.  I was thoroughly impressed with how quickly they processed this request - Thank you, Team! (if you ever read this)

The next step, once it was back in our possession, was to fill out the appropriate forms and mail it all back to the US again...this time so that the US Secretary of State (his staff) could add another layer of authentication on top of it.  While their website says to allow up to 11 weeks for them to process documents, we had it back in about two weeks.  We were actually in Thailand again when we got the email notification that we had mail waiting in our box.  Huge surprise - we got home to find it in our box, with a fancy cover sheet affixed to the growing stack of pages atop our marriage document. 

How's that for a fancy piece of paper?!

With this awesomeness received and Step 2 complete, the next step was to mail it back to America - for a THIRD time - so that the Royal Thai Embassy can add one more layer to it, thus legalizing it for use back in Thailand.  Once we have it back from this third trip, we'll take it with us on a future trip to Thailand, where we'll have it translated before visiting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with it.  Once we have their seal of approval on it, we can visit the city office in Korat and bickity bam - we'll be legally married in Thailand (after 20+ years of being 'married'...finally)!

While it is a fairly straight-forward process, it does require a bit of patience and quite a few envelopes/money orders/hopeful meditation sessions.  Retirement is fast-approaching and we'll be on Thai-time before we know it!