Marrying in May!

[LondonLady 0]

Hello

I am from California and my fiancé is English. We live together in London and plan to get married this year. We need to get married by June, as I will need to have the marriage certificate when we apply for a different visa here in the UK, and we want to continue living here. However, we plan to move back to the Us in a couple of years, so we want to make sure we are in compliance with immigration.

We hoped to get married in California this May, but we've just found out that it could take 8-10 months to get a fiancé visa. From what we have read, it is frowned upon to get married on a tourist visa. However, most of the cases we have read about include people trying to stay in the US after, which we do not plan to do. Are we a different case? We just don't want to have trouble moving back later on in life.

We have also considered marrying here in the UK (court house type thing) and then having a bigger wedding in the US. Would there be any problems with this?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[lost_at_sea 995]

You can get married in the US. Folks do that all the time (Destination Wedding!) - but you must leave afterwards - you'll have to show you're not intending to commit visa fraud on the way in by showing you're going to leave again (return flights booked, have a job & house abroad etc.) else they can turn you away at the border.

[Penguin_ie 5,992]

You do not need to get a K1 fiance visa- those are for people who want to marry in the USA and THEN STAY. As you only want to get married and then return to the UK, simply have him use the VWP.

[cathy2904 97]

I agree with the other posters. There is nothing wrong with going to the USA to get married, so long as you return afterwards.

[LondonLady 0]

Thanks for getting back to me. I have read that marrying on a tourist visa may preclude him from getting a visa in the future. Is that something we should be worried about?

[Penguin_ie 5,992]

Nothing to worry about, what you read was wrong. Just make sure he doesn't overstay his 90 days (always better to book the return flight for day 88 or so, in case of weather delays), and you will be fine.

[Ryan H 3,810]

Moved from K1 Progress Reports to IR-1/CR-1 Process & Procedures; topic is not a K1 case status update and the OP's ultimate plans place them on the spousal visa path.