March 2009 K1 Filer

[Gemmie 142]

I know what you mean about wedding planning. I hate that we have to do a civil ceremony, but I got my visa in May and am moving in June, so we really don't have time or money for anything else. We're going cheap.. when I say cheap, I mean CHEAP. I'm getting a (nice) dress from Dave's Bridal for like a couple hundred, and people we know are doing the food... I also want it to be somewhere where we don't have to pay thousands of $ just to hire it, anywhere nice will do. I've learned in this game that money is NOT important to a wedding.

Edited May 28, 2009 by Gemmie

[FranziskaS 0]

you are right about money. you guys will probably have the greatest day of your life not matter how little you spend. and friends and family know how to make the best food anyways. many people don't understand that we want to have a wedding this year without a big party. but we rather save our money for next year. the only thing that confuses me is that I whish I could pick my wedding date this year to have our wedding next year on the same date. but right now that seems impossible to plan. I also want to go back to germany for my grandparents 60. anniversary december 17. 2009 . So I need to manage to get married and file for aos in time to get an AP before dec. 17th. every now and then I am afraid I won't make it. also our best friends are getting married on September 19. this year.......meaning I really need this NOA2.....soon...please.....

btw we got a new puppy, well, my fiancee gets to enjoy the little boy.....so sad I can't see him in person....

[FrostyMist 1]

I think for my wedding, what I and my guy want probably won't amount to being all that expensive. He doesn't have many family members that he's close with, so he'll only be inviting his mum and dad. I'll just be inviting my mum, her partner, and my two brothers and their partners. There'll be 10 people at our wedding, including bride and groom!

We've decided for our wedding, we want something extremely small and personal. We're hoping to have the "big" ceremony at his mum's, because both of us like the idea of being able to set it up exactly how we'd like.

Edited May 28, 2009 by FrostyMist

[Danu 19]

about the wedding again....we will do exactly what all of you are doing. quick marriage in the US and bigger one next year in germany. german's are penny pinchers. My parents would call a 10k wedding outrageous. I told them that that kind of money is easily spent, but I think they think I am crazy. I tryed to figure things out as far as venues and so on. my fiancee hates to plan anything in life so he won't talk about the wedding on the phone. and anyways it is impossible to plan something that far ahead.

totally different topic. I have a lot of stuff here I'd like to bring to the US. there are two options. #1 is my parents are travelling with me an we each take to suitcases full of stuff. its mostly decorating stuff. but this might look weird at poe and we'd have to declare everything that stays in the US.

#2 ship my stuff. does anyone have any idea how much this would be. do they go by weight or volume or both? also have my beloved bike that I want to bring with me. even though it still semms forever until I will leave it will alll go really fast in the end and am afraid I won't be prepared enough.

vegabond, I hope you calculations are right

Damn right Germans are! (I'm half german, was born in Herbolzheim, my mom's family is all in the Neiderhousen area) because of how stupid things are price wise over here though 10k is cheep. I would do it cheeper if I could have my family make the food, but as they are travelling I can't do that. I'm still going to try to cut the costs even more if I can, its hard to get a super acurate price while I'm still up here, and I'm sure that he might know people who can do certain things (DJ etc) for a lower cost for us. Having the family give us 3k for sure gives me a bit moer play room than we would have if it was just us planning and paying lol. We're also not doing a party after our first wedding at all. Maybe a dinner out with the people who are travelling (my best friend wants to be at both) but thats about it.

Edited May 28, 2009 by Danu

[FrostyMist 1]

Today, I made a start on getting a copy of my vaccination records. My doctors are notorious for being slow and awkward about providing any sort of data to their patients, so I'm starting early so that I can get it all done in time.

Unfortunately, the receptionist did not seem too sure about exactly what needed to be done. In the end, she left a note for the nurse and asked me to call back on Wednesday.

It's nice to be doing something visa related.

totally different topic. I have a lot of stuff here I'd like to bring to the US. there are two options. #1 is my parents are travelling with me an we each take to suitcases full of stuff. its mostly decorating stuff. but this might look weird at poe and we'd have to declare everything that stays in the US.

#2 ship my stuff. does anyone have any idea how much this would be. do they go by weight or volume or both? also have my beloved bike that I want to bring with me. even though it still semms forever until I will leave it will alll go really fast in the end and am afraid I won't be prepared enough.

If your parents were to bring along your stuff for you, you would need to be careful about making sure the weight did not exceed the baggage limits, or else you would get charged the excess. This, I think, can be quite expensive.

I think I read something about getting additional baggage weight allowance if you are immigrating, but I did not look into this because it wouldn't really work for my stuff.

My fiance is already budgeting for the costs of shipping my belongings (and hopefully my pets-though it'll just be my cat since my dog is far too sick to be allowed to fly) and we've looked into it a little bit so far.

I didn't go into any great amount of research, because I figured that the costs could change a lot in the next six months, and it will be at least that amount of time until I fly to the US.

Most of my belongings consists of books, DVDs, and small personal items (plus clothes). Costs vary depending on how long they take to arrive in the US. If you must have your items very quickly, then the costs will be very, very high.

If you are willing to wait, you could send your belongings via surface mail. It takes about 4-6 weeks (maybe longer) to arrive, but there's a huge, huge difference in the cost. This is the option I am looking into. Everything I need immediately, I will take in my luggage.

Another thing I am looking into is finding out whether I can sell some of my belongings and then use the money to buy them again in the US.

If, for example, it costs me £10 to ship a book, but only £5 to buy it again in the US, then you can see that it would save money to go for that approach.

From what I understand of the shipping sites I looked at, cost is generally calculated by either weight or volume. I *think* it depends on which is the most.

In order to ship all my belongings, I estimated a cost of £1500 - £2000. But, I must confess that this was a very, very rough guess. I may have massively over-estimated how much volume they would use, or even massively under-estimated. Becuase my family are in the midst of moving house at the moment, it is very difficult for me to estimate how much stuff I actually have because so much of it is in boxes and is being stored out of the way.

I don't know when the best time to start sorting out shipping your stuff over will be. I have done some research, and once I get my visa I'll probably do some more research again. I'll need to order boxes and packing equipment. It will probably end up being that my belongings are shipped either a few days before I leave, or a few days after.

Because I am paranoid something will go horribly wrong at POE, I'll probably wait until a few days after I'm in the country. Although that will depend on whether someone in my family would be willing to help supervise the shipping company when they arrive to collect everything.

It'll also cost me an extra £800 - £1600 to get my cat over there.

Overal, it's going to be expensive!

Edited May 29, 2009 by FrostyMist

[jomegared 0]

Hello all.

I just wanted to jump into the group. We also filled in March. The 2nd to be exact.

So right now im just saying hi! In for the long haul! lol.

But we all know its worth the wait.

Hope everyone is well.

Josh

[Saska+Tim 7]

Hello all.

I just wanted to jump into the group. We also filled in March. The 2nd to be exact.

So right now im just saying hi! In for the long haul! lol.

But we all know its worth the wait.

Hope everyone is well.

Josh

Welcome Josh! Yes, it is worth of waiting

[FrostyMist 1]

Welcome, Josh.

It's certainly going to be well worth the wait.

[Rainschild 0]

Hey Josh, welcome to our March club! Hope you get approved soon!

[FranziskaS 0]

thanks rainshield2007 for commenting on that misleading timeline. drives me crazy when people do that. out of boredom I clicked through not-yet-approved timelines. I found three alone in december filers that already had their interview date, but didn't put in their NOA2 date. not that it makes our approvals come faster but it seems like it also I believe that each month about 5-10 members abandon their timeline. I was happy to see that vj sent out a notice to update timelines.

enough complained for the day.

welcome, josh

[Rainschild 0]

thanks rainshield2007 for commenting on that misleading timeline. drives me crazy when people do that. out of boredom I clicked through not-yet-approved timelines. I found three alone in december filers that already had their interview date, but didn't put in their NOA2 date. not that it makes our approvals come faster but it seems like it also I believe that each month about 5-10 members abandon their timeline. I was happy to see that vj sent out a notice to update timelines.

enough complained for the day.

welcome, josh

Yeah, our timelines are already messed up why play with them more? Anyway, the May filer was nice and corrected the error almost immediately after I drew his attention.

I'm still looking forward to the first March filer approved by CSC

[Maverick64 0]

I guess we're the first of the March 2009 filers, filing from Illinois to the California Service Center.

Based on the valuable information shared here, we're hoping that the 7-month time frame holds up so that we can have an October wedding.

Now the first stage of waiting begins......

Wish us luck!

Hello, My fiancee is Panamanian also. Our NOA1 date is April 22 2009. So I would like to see how your K1 progresses especially at the Embassy In Panama City. Good luck to both of you!

[FranziskaS 0]

thanks rainshield2007 for commenting on that misleading timeline. drives me crazy when people do that. out of boredom I clicked through not-yet-approved timelines. I found three alone in december filers that already had their interview date, but didn't put in their NOA2 date. not that it makes our approvals come faster but it seems like it also I believe that each month about 5-10 members abandon their timeline. I was happy to see that vj sent out a notice to update timelines.

enough complained for the day.

welcome, josh

Yeah, our timelines are already messed up why play with them more? Anyway, the May filer was nice and corrected the error almost immediately after I drew his attention.

I'm still looking forward to the first March filer approved by CSC

again a sort of march filer got approved. they sent their petition on 2-10 and got noa1 on 3-11. they got their noa2 on 5-22. sometimes I think people put in the dates as noa1 and noa2 when they recieved it in the the mail. that's what I had saying in my timeline for the first week, when I noticed this link which says where to find your noa1.

anyways, May has passed, shall June be our month.

I've noticed a lot of petitions got approved in a three months timeframe, so this has to be our month, pleeeeeeease

[Rainschild 0]

thanks rainshield2007 for commenting on that misleading timeline. drives me crazy when people do that. out of boredom I clicked through not-yet-approved timelines. I found three alone in december filers that already had their interview date, but didn't put in their NOA2 date. not that it makes our approvals come faster but it seems like it also I believe that each month about 5-10 members abandon their timeline. I was happy to see that vj sent out a notice to update timelines.

enough complained for the day.

welcome, josh

Yeah, our timelines are already messed up why play with them more? Anyway, the May filer was nice and corrected the error almost immediately after I drew his attention.

I'm still looking forward to the first March filer approved by CSC

again a sort of march filer got approved. they sent their petition on 2-10 and got noa1 on 3-11. they got their noa2 on 5-22. sometimes I think people put in the dates as noa1 and noa2 when they recieved it in the the mail. that's what I had saying in my timeline for the first week, when I noticed this link which says where to find your noa1.

anyways, May has passed, shall June be our month.

I've noticed a lot of petitions got approved in a three months timeframe, so this has to be our month, pleeeeeeease

Me too! Funny that I wanted to change my signature and take out the estimate, but the system is giving me an error, so I can't erase that. Maybe it's a sign, maybe I'll be approved by June 22

[FranziskaS 0]

how do I get our picture to display on the lefthand side below my name? timeline is frozen. been 12 days for csc since the last noa2. annoying. did I tell you guys my fiancee has a puppy since mid may and I can't see them it is our first dog. my soon to be mother in law called the senator have him call uscis. senator promised that our petition will leave uscis within 60 days. I think my fiancee thought he meant I have the visa in 60 days. really hope we are approved in less than 60 days. enough whining for tonight. hope you are all hanging in there.

tonight my thoughts are with the victims of the Air-France-Flight AF-447