How late is late for wedding date?

[Messybrownhair 251]

Your Sept 25 plan is fine. I too did not want a courthouse wedding before the church one.. its up to you and its your wedding so do it the way you want within those 90 days

[Anh map 2,098]

We did not have vows at our 1st wedding or 2nd wedding. We just had big celebration with 350 guests. We got married in front of a judge and paid the fee. I'm not sure how complicated people are getting married these days. BTW, my wife got the notice in the mail 3 weeks green card will come. I did not break any laws as it is clearly stated in our marriage certificate we are married on April 30, 2011. Pretty simple.

There are different traditions for the wedding ceremony and parties. Don't confuse common VN practices with those of other nationalities or religions.

[Mr&Mrs.Boo 5]

Hello All,

My finance is finally here now, and we are contemplating when exactly to set the wedding date. We really need more time for wedding planning, so we are thinking of setting the wedding date for Sept. 25, but her visa will expire on Sept. 30, so are we cutting things too close by waiting this late, and will this cause us problems when we go to file her change of status? Our only other date available is Aug. 28, and that is just cutting it very close to get everything completed and ready by then, so we would like to move the date back, but we also don't want to cause ourselves any problems with filing for the change of status. How soon before her visa expires should we be planning to be married, to give ourselves plenty of time for filing? Does the wedding date even have any impact on our filing for the change of status, as long as it is before her visa expires? We just really don't know what to do and are majorly stressing, so any guidance and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Thanks in advance for any and all help you can offer...we are desperate!!!

Hi there, so you guys just need to go at the Jp(Justice of the peace ) in your area and get marry just to stay on the safe side,after that you have all the time in the world to plan the wedding like we did,we had 3 wedding:))) one in an ortodox church back in Romania with no papers just the priest having the ceremony and after that a reception with all my friends and family after that i come here and me and my husband went to the Jp in december so i ll be in the 90 days limit and have the marriage certificate and after that we plan a new wedding these summer where we had a renewal of the vows and a reception for his family and friends .but the most important is to be married in 90 days since you got here.Good luck

[newlyweds2010 208]

we got married on day 83. no problem at all.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Your wedding plans for September 25 are fine. 90 days is tight to plan all of those details for a big wedding, but it can be done. You don't need to do a court house wedding - you can wait for the 'big day' as it falls within the 90 day period. You could get married on the 89th day and still fulfil the K-1 requirements so you are fine.

You don't need to file the I-485 within the same 90 day framework but you should do so as soon as possible. There is no 'timeline' so it isn't within 2 years and you definitely don't want to wait that long. The important thing to understand is that when your fiancee entered on the K-1 visa and received the I-94 issued at that entry, your fiancee was given legal status in the US valid for 90 days. Once those 90 days expires her legal status also expires even if you are married. You need to file the I-485 - which is requesting permission for her to stay in the US legally as a permanent resident - in order to regain legal status. Once the application is filed her status again becomes legal as an 'AOS applicant". When a decision is made she then should receive her PR status and get her green card.

If she is without legal status she is at risk for being detained and hassled by USCIS and ICE agents - a fate you do not wish to inflict on someone you love . Deportation would be unlikely as she is eligible to file for AOS having satisfied the terms of the K-1 and is now married to her US citizen spouse, but she would still be hassled until the I-485 has been filed. You do need to complete the process in a timely way. So, get married, enjoy your honeymoon, and as soon after that as you are able to get the evidence together submit the I-485.

While there isn't a time period required, it is also important to remember that anyone who is out of status for 180 days will incur an automatic 3 year ban if they leave the US without having a green card - and if that out of status time is a year, then it is an automatic 10 year ban. This means that if she ran into an emergency and had to leave the US (ie the death of a family member, etc.) - even with permission of an Advance Parole - her out of status overstay would kick in and she would not be allowed to return to the US for 3 or 10 years.

So, file the AOS as soon as you can - and your wedding date is fine to satisfy the K-1 requirements.

Edited August 7, 2011 by Kathryn41

[Jason96 1]

Thanks everyone for your responses here and it helped us in deciding to move our wedding date back to give us more time for planning and saving, because our journey has financially broke me so that we have very little money for wedding planning, and virtually no money for a honeymoon, thus moving the date back a month will give us another month to save!!!!

For what it is worth, I agree that I don't want to have our wedding be at the judge's office, and then have a celebration later with family and friends, as it is no longer a wedding once we are married. For me personally, I feel very strongly about this as you only get married once (unless you get divorced of course, which I have no plans to do), and I don't want that treasured memory of getting married to be at the judge's office, instead of being with my family and friends on that grand occasion. Everyone is free to do things how they chose to do them as long as they are legal and don't impose on another's rights, but as for me and my personal feelings on this matter, it would be an empty ceremony for me to just get married at the justice of the peace, and then have a "wedding" later with my loved ones....to me that would just be a celebration, not a wedding, and I want the full wedding experience of actually being married in front of my family and friends for the first time!

Thanks again everyone and may God bless each of us!

[ceadsearc 516]

You've already gotten great advice here that you are fine to wait until September 25th. I just wanted to add that, if possible, you might want to organize all your paperwork for your adjustment of status prior to the wedding, so that after you get married, all you are waiting for is the marriage certificate to send in your paperwork. In my state, that can be received the same day as the marriage, but I know it varies. Either way, this will considerably cut down or possibly even eliminate the time in between I-94 expiration and the legal period while awaiting approval for AOS.