Please calm down my girlfrined...:)

[Vegas-Dreamer 0]

Hey everybody!!!

i just signed up here and i already introduced myself in the appropriate part of the forum.....i hope and i'm very confident to get some very heplful advice for us so that we won't have any problems on our journey to my greencard...

i came to the US in 2010 on a b2 visa and applied for an extension which was approved....but the longer i was here, the more i started to love it...so i decided to overstay my i-94....it expired at the end of march 2011.....i met a girl at work in dezember 2010 but we were just friends until a few weeks ago somethin' magical happened, sparks were flying and we fell in love....she already moved in with me and we decided to get married.... i already did some research and i have some experience with the application-forms from my b2-application...so the paperwork won't be a big problem for us i think....

the only thing that worries me a little is this: will our case look suspicious to a certain degree, since there won't be much time from the day we started our relationship and the day we'll get married ( we plan to get married in 3 weeks....so there would only be about 6 weeks total in between )....or is this something we shouldn't be too worried about??

i'll do my best to combine our insurances and for sure our bank-accounts so that i can sent them in together with the application....we'd have our wedding reception in about 3 months, since my parents would like to come over and be with us at the wedding ( so we won't have any pics of a wedding which we can submit with the application. but for sure we'll have them ready once we get to the interview..so i gues that shouldn't be a problem either...)

anyway...so i hope u guys have some advice for us and can provide so peace of mind...( especially for my girlfriend...

thanks so much in advance and have a great day!!!

greetings from sunny vegas..

[ceadsearc 516]

You probably will be scrutinized much closer since your courtship is so short. This is a red flag. Nonetheless, people do get married after short courtships, like you are doing. I assume you are getting married at the courthouse or something similar since you said your family will not be there. You can still take pictures, though. Bring a friend or even ask the justice of the peace to snap some pictures. Affidavits from family and friends attesting to the legitimacy of your marriage are also a good idea since it sounds like you won't have many/any pictures with family. Simply put, gather any evidence you can, including emails or anything else from before you were dating proving that at the very least, you have known each other longer.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I'd wait until you're ready for the big reception before you get married. There's another VJ member in this subforum who is currently having problems because (among other things) she had a small civil wedding with no family members in attendance except her son. A little more overstay isn't going to affect your adjustment of status, and it will add a few more months to the length of your relationship. More than anything else, you don't want it to look like you got married quickly because of your immigration status.

[Vegas-Dreamer 0]

hey guys!!!

thanks so much for ur answers so far!!! that is pretty much what i expected....our history and the not tooooo long relationship might not make the best impression.....we do have lots of paperwork which we can send in with the petition though....and we started taking pics like paparazzis in the meantime...

i just talked to my daddy back home this mornin' and we came up with another idea....we thought it'd be great to have a big wedding celebration and going through the whole church process in germany with all my familiy and friends....( my wife's family relations here are not in best condition unfortunately, so probably none of them would be joining us at our reception...pretty sad )

but of course as always...there's a hook...

i did some reasearch about the 'advance parole and overstay' issue.....but i'm not sure what the border protection would decide in my case.....here's our timeline:

we want to get married on august 25th and mail out the petions shortly after....if we say we receive the NOA two weeks later, that would be the around september 12....my I-94 expired on march 29 2011...so my overstay-day #180 would be september 25th....so in case we receive the NOA prior to that september 25th and i have not overstayed more than 180 days, could i travel with the advance parole without fear?? In other words: is the border control strictly bound to this 180 days-rule??? or could they decide either way???

i hope u'll have some good news for me......i really tried to find an answer on my own research, but i could't find a truely satisfying post....

...this would be soo phantastic if we had the chance to realize that back home in germany...especially since my grandma got very sick and we all would be soo happy if she could be part of her oldest grandson's-wedding...

Thanks a lot for ur time and effort!!!!

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

I would not travel on AP with 170ish days of overstay. CBP does have discretion to deny you entry. The good news is that the AP takes about 3 months, and the whole thing takes 3-4 months, so you only lose a month or so by waiting to have the ceremony until you have your GC.

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

The one thing the I.O. was interested at the AOS interview was the big photo album of our wedding and reception showing family and friends having a great time. You just can't fake that as easily compared to a quickie wedding in Vegas performed by Elvis with Marylin Monroe as a witness.

Don't plan on leaving the U.S. before you have your Green Card at hand.

[Vegas-Dreamer 0]

damn...that's not the answer i was hoping for....

..if everything goes well and we pass the interview of course we'd fly home and have the big celebration then...but going to the interview considering the fact that we won't have a big wedding-celebration here prior to the interview ( i already mentioned her messed-up family situation, and i can't just fly in all my relatives although i'd love that of course ) makes me feel pretty uncomfortable right now....so if anybody has made a good expierince or a good advice how to solve that problem your input would be highly appreciated!! we'll have enought paperwork to proof that we are actually happily married..i'm not worried about that...but i totally understand that a not excisting wedding celebration rises at least some suspicion on their side....hmmmm...a lot to think about tonight....

anyway....thanks again for taking the time to read my post and the effort to help us here...

[Little_My 464]

If the suspicion of the IO is what you are worried about, I would not really be worried. Many couples here just have a simple, small city hall ceremony, and a large number of those couples never even plan to have a bigger wedding celebration. I doubt that not having a big wedding reception would really lead to any suspicion, if there aren't other big red flags related to your case and relationship.

We had a city hall ceremony in February, and had about 8 friends there with us. Though it was small and simple, it was still a wonderful experience. We had a ton of photos that our friends took (a few of them happen to be extremely good photographers with pro cameras), and one of my best friends actually shot and edited us a short, beautiful video of the whole thing. I can tell you that those emotions and the joy that comes through from both the photos and video also cannot be faked - so there is a way to have a meaningful and emotional city hall experience as well.

However, we (me more than him originally) also wanted to have a bigger, more traditional wedding ceremony, which we decided to have in Finland. We submitted our paperwork in March 2011, scheduled our Finland wedding for July 30th, then got notice about our interview which was inconveniently scheduled for July 20th. We ended up flying in for the interview (I was already in Finland and my husband came from India where he was at the time for work purposes), had our interview on July 20th, got our approval email on July 22nd, and went on to have a beautiful wonderful wedding celebration on July 30th. We had been planning the bigger wedding celebration since August 2010, but it had not taken place by the time of our interview either - and it did not come up at all, though we did mention it in our paperwork somewhere. IO did not ask us even about our city hall ceremony - but we did provide pictures of it.

I personally think your safest bet is to forget about traveling before having the GC in your hands due to your overstay. The lack of a big wedding celebration is not a deal breaker by any means, and you can always have it after you've received your GC. However, based on the timeline you described in your first post, I'd say the earliest you could hope to get an interview is maybe in December, probably in January.. so I would not plan a big, expensive wedding earlier than March/April, to be on the safe side.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Little_My

[ceadsearc 516]

While it looks like it may not be possible to have your family at your small wedding, is there any reason you cannot have friends there? The IO will likely understand that your family couldn't come from Germany prior to the wedding, but it would make sense that local friends would be there if the wedding date is planned in advance.

[Vegas-Dreamer 0]

hey!!!!

thanks again for all ur answers!!!!

yeah sure we have friends who would attend the wedding....and as of now that's what we're gonna do...

i talked to my parents again this mornin' via skype and we worked out new plans....so we're gonna have a small wedding-celebration with our friends here in vegas ( probably around 20 guests ) and then if everything goes well we'll have a big celebration on my mom's birthday on may 5th....my mom is on fire already and wants to start planning out the whole celebration...i'm sure she already knows what kind of flowers are supposed to be on the table-decoration:DD....maybe i could even include a sample of the celebration-invitation and restaurant-confirmation to the petition...

my wife-to-be and thes guy here in front of the laptop feel much better already and we want to thank u all for ur comments!!! THANK YOU!!!...

[ceadsearc 516]

hey!!!!

my wife-to-be and thes guy here in front of the laptop feel much better already and we want to thank u all for ur comments!!! THANK YOU!!!...

Sounds like a great plan. Congratulations!!

[lilly1986 5]

sorry to ask...but what about the overstay? u will not ever get problems because of that?

[ceadsearc 516]

sorry to ask...but what about the overstay? u will not ever get problems because of that?

Overstay is forgiven for immediate family of US citizens, assuming there are no other issues to go along with it (material misrepresentation, etc.).