Fiance visa - wedding

[Tunaa 0]

Hi all!

Again, I am seeking advice on holding a wedding when in the US on a fiance visa.

Me and my fiance initially though we would hold a big wedding, inviting all our family and friends, both from my home country, and his family from America.

However, we have had some problems trying to plan this, both when it comes to money (obtaining a visa and moving costs a lot!), enough time to plan and book everything, enough time for the guests, and also since not everyone seems to be very supporting of the whole moving and getting married so quickly.

I am leaning more and more towards having a small ceremony before the 90 days, then planning a big wedding next year. This gives us more time to plan, and makes it all less stressful, and also easier on our families.

How did you all plan your wedding, and get everything done within 90 days?

Did you have a big wedding, or a small?

Who did you invite?

Etc

[april082010 3]

Hi all!

Again, I am seeking advice on holding a wedding when in the US on a fiance visa.

Me and my fiance initially though we would hold a big wedding, inviting all our family and friends, both from my home country, and his family from America.

However, we have had some problems trying to plan this, both when it comes to money (obtaining a visa and moving costs a lot!), enough time to plan and book everything, enough time for the guests, and also since not everyone seems to be very supporting of the whole moving and getting married so quickly.

I am leaning more and more towards having a small ceremony before the 90 days, then planning a big wedding next year. This gives us more time to plan, and makes it all less stressful, and also easier on our families.

How did you all plan your wedding, and get everything done within 90 days?

Did you have a big wedding, or a small?

Who did you invite?

Etc

In my case we decided to have a simple wedding and planning to have a big wedding later on. We just invited some of my husband's officemate and friends.. 10 people at most. Though its a civil wedding, we have a maid of honor and a best man. Immigration process is very stressful and 3 months is not enough for the whole preparation. And besides it doesn't end on that.. you would have to file AOS which also cost a lot of money..

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

[Dan J 277]

Hi all!

Again, I am seeking advice on holding a wedding when in the US on a fiance visa.

Me and my fiance initially though we would hold a big wedding, inviting all our family and friends, both from my home country, and his family from America.

However, we have had some problems trying to plan this, both when it comes to money (obtaining a visa and moving costs a lot!), enough time to plan and book everything, enough time for the guests, and also since not everyone seems to be very supporting of the whole moving and getting married so quickly.

I am leaning more and more towards having a small ceremony before the 90 days, then planning a big wedding next year. This gives us more time to plan, and makes it all less stressful, and also easier on our families.

How did you all plan your wedding, and get everything done within 90 days?

Did you have a big wedding, or a small?

Who did you invite?

Etc

Doing it in 90 days is tough. You are better off just doing a civil marriage at a courthouse to satisfy the K-1 requirements and then doing a wedding with friends and family on your own time.

Its much easier than stressing out about having a big wedding within 90 days.

[Kukolka 8]

It seems if you're inviting a lot of guests from overseas, and *not* using most of the 6 months before POE, yes, it's easier to get married at a courthouse to fulfill the K-1 requirement, then plan a large celebration on your own time.

It's *possible* to plan a large wedding in the time allotted by the K-1 visa. Using most of the 6 months before moving would be useful for that. Have everything that's not time-sensitive ready to go (guest list, attire; pick out menus, invitations, favours). To save time on printing invitations (printers typically take about 5 weeks), use packaged blank invitations formatted to print from your computer printer. Have a few choices for each vendor: location, officiant, photographer, caterer, DJ, florist, cake artist, etc. Find a hotel that will let you reserve a block of rooms with no penalty. Gather information for a few hotels in different price ranges to pass on to your guests. Keep your guests informed that they'll be invited to a wedding on short notice. Address envelopes.

Once you get the visa (and not before), put the plan into action: pick a range of dates (remember you have 9 months total to work with), and find out which of those work for the people who *must* be there (closest family, wedding party?) Call your first choice vendors to find out which of those dates all of them are available; contact backup vendors if necessary. Book everything. Reserve a block of hotel rooms for out-of-town guests. Mail invitations. E-mail or call guests, as well, so they know when the wedding will be before receiving a snail-mail invitation.

In my case, we're having a smallish wedding (around 40 people) but that would've been the same had we both been USCs. We don't have many guests coming from out-of-state. We're planning with great help from my parents, who do the legwork as soon as we come up with an idea. He's moving soon after he gets the visa instead of waiting most of the 6 months because we don't want to be apart any longer than necessary.

[Tunaa 0]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

When I get my visa, which should hopefully be by August, I do not wish to wait any longer than I have to, to move. Being apart is just too tough. This gives us about 4 months to plan from this date.

I am really leaning towards having a small ceremony now, inviting our immediate family and his friends in the US, than having a big wedding which we get to plan, and really make our dream wedding, next year. The problem is still that we both kind of want the wedding to take place in our country; if I have it in Norway more of my norwegian and swedish family will make it, if he has it in Dallas, more of his american family will. However, we would probably hold it in America.

I want plannin my wedding to be fun and exciting. I never wanted to have a long engagement and expensive and huge wedding, but 90 months is turning in to being more stressful and a lot of comprimising, than it should be fun and exciting.

Thanks for you input people, i would love some more!

[VanessaTony 3,567]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

When I get my visa, which should hopefully be by August, I do not wish to wait any longer than I have to, to move. Being apart is just too tough. This gives us about 4 months to plan from this date.

I am really leaning towards having a small ceremony now, inviting our immediate family and his friends in the US, than having a big wedding which we get to plan, and really make our dream wedding, next year. The problem is still that we both kind of want the wedding to take place in our country; if I have it in Norway more of my norwegian and swedish family will make it, if he has it in Dallas, more of his american family will. However, we would probably hold it in America.

I want plannin my wedding to be fun and exciting. I never wanted to have a long engagement and expensive and huge wedding, but 90 months is turning in to being more stressful and a lot of comprimising, than it should be fun and exciting.

Thanks for you input people, i would love some more!

Well.. seeing you're legally married by the "big wedding" anyway, why don't you plan 2? Have one here and one there? Then no-one misses out.

I got married here during the 90 days for the big wedding, and I'm having a reception in Australia when we get a chance to visit. I will be playing the wedding ceremony DVD for everyone to see at the start of the Aussie reception.

[jrmejia 31]

Doing it in 90 days is tough. You are better off just doing a civil marriage at a courthouse to satisfy the K-1 requirements and then doing a wedding with friends and family on your own time.

Its much easier than stressing out about having a big wedding within 90 days.

That is how we are going to do it.

[Becky&Steven 1]

we're also just going to do the civil marriage, and save up to have the ceremony later.

[Aubrey 10]

We wanted the big all-family wedding, but 90 days and the K expenses just didn't make that workable. We opted for a Vegas wedding, since my family wasn't near by anyway. It was his parents, my parents, his uncle & grandma, and my sister and niece. It was nice and everyone loved it.

You could look into somewhere closer by that has packages for small weddings. many larger cities have such things. We didn't feel like it'd be the same to have a courthouse & another ceremony later.

[newlyweds2010 208]

Everybody back home told me that it takes about 1 year to plan a proper wedding, so I was thinking "how are we going to do it in less than 3 months?".

Therefore our original idea was to have a small wedding and then eventually a bigger party. But her family (she's the USC) suggested that we have a big wedding reception + party right away, or we will never have time to organize a bigger event later.

So they took care of everything, booked the place, got the dresses for the girls and the tuxedos for the men, ordered the wedding cake, got the invitation cards, mailed them out both national and international.

they started working on it after I arrived, and it's all set for August 7. less than 90 days to do the whole thing. there will be around 100 people. and it's going to be awesome

[obnancy 5]

Hi, my husband was here on a B2 visa when a situation back home made him realize he wanted to be with me and he proposed. I had 35 days to plan my wedding and it came off beautifully. I had a wedding and reception for 60 people at a beautiful timeshare resort in Carlsbad, Ca overlooking the ocean.

Yes, it was stressful finding a location in a month and plan an entire wedding, but it can be done and it turned out great. Once I got engaged, I called all my local close friends and told them I needed help. I wanted a wedding by the beach, last minute and on a budget. Calling venues and asking for the date, most laughed at me, with "oh, we are booked full until next winter." My best friend came through and through a time share she owns away from the beach, she has access to the timeshare on the beach and I was able to book their "owners room" for the reception and the lawn area overlooking the ocean for the ceremony.

They allowed me to bring in my own caterer and alcohol (which with an Australian husband and some of his friends is a huge expense I was able to do a great dinner and bar for under 25pp which was about a 1/5 of the cost that hotels wanted to charge.

I bought a beautiful dress made by BCBG at Macy's on sale for under $200. It was a light white cotton looking silk long sheath dress that was perfect. My client had a wholesale florest license and hooked me up with a florist who did beautiful tropical flowers for under $300 for reception and bouquets. Everyone comented on how nice the room looked.

Since I didn't have time for proper invites, another client of mine made a wedding website with all the details and I called each person to personally invite them and sent them a link to the wedding website. Everyone understood that Ms. Manners would have to be put in the closet because of the timing of the wedding. We didn't have time to registser so I jokingly put in the website that Brad loves Home Depot, I'm a Macy's girl and my son thinks Toys r us is the only place to register. Guess what, we got home depot, macy's and a couple of toys r us cards.

Another good friend of mine plans a lot of fundraising events for her job, so I put her in charge of day of stuff. I gave her the catering contract, ministers contact info (found her via craigslist, had an add saying she was Australian, spoke to her on the phone and hired her. She turned out great.) hotel contact info and then let her handle everything that day. I never saw the final bill, packed anything up etc... She took care of everything. Find that person to handle things for you! You don't want to be bothered on that day.

With the short notice, it was cost prohibative for his friends and family in Austrlia to come so we are planning a reception party and 90th birthday party for his father this January (if GC or AP comes through).

If you are not a control freak who has dreamed of her wedding since she was 6, this kind of thing could work for you. Delegate and then let go of most everything you can and everything will work out. Yes, everything won't be perfect and you need to let things slide off your back. If you do, you can have a great wedding, that is a lot of fun.

Good luck ladies!