Things are starting to come together, finally.

Last weekend, we went to the local UPS Store to attempt to mail off our request to the Bahamas for a certified copy of our marriage certificate. This requires an international money order for the fee, as well as international air mail via courier service with a pre-paid return envelope. In order to send a pre-paid return envelope, one must have an account with said courier service. Ben had called the UPS Store, and apparently had been mis-informed by the fellow on the phone that we could buy an international money order at the store, open an account, and mail off our request. When we arrived at the store, this was not the case. They do not sell international money orders. They could not assist us in opening an account; that must be done through UPS directly – and they are closed on the weekends. The employees also seemed not to know much about international mailing. This forced us to re-think and re-group; I subsequently spent a lot of time doing internet research regarding this process:

International money orders are easily obtained at the local US Post Office. They cost $3.85.

We decided to use FedEx as our courier service provider. We easily opened an account online. No problem.

Earlier this week, we decided to proceed with the Full-Dossier Compilation Service from CCAI for the sealing of our dossier documents. We contacted CCAI, who forwarded a copy of the service agreement to us via email. After a short trip to the same local UPS Store for notary service – the only local notary easily available on a Saturday – we headed to FedEx to mail off our payment and a few dossier documents.

We were also armed with a request letter for a certified copy of our marriage certificate and its accompanying fee in the form of an international money order. The employee at FedEx was knowledgeable, and walked us through the process of completing the international airbills for outgoing and return mailings. I didn’t realize how much it would cost to mail via courier to the Bahamas, but considering the distance I can understand the price. Hopefully, everything works out well.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 8:41 pm and is filed under Paper Chase. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.