No wedding plans yet- will this look bad in interview?

[sarah and hicham 3]

My fiance and I plan to have a civil service marriage at the couthouse in my town when he gets here. We both want to wait a year or so after he is here to have a big wedding with family and friends with a reception because I am a full time student and want to wait to graduate before planning our wedding. Will this look bad in the interview? Should my fiance explain our plans? We would rather wait to have a big ceremony until I graduate, is that ok as long as we get legally married when he gets here? Thanks!

Sarah

[jordanianprincess 0]

Hi Sarah,

Well I was previously married and I did an adjustment of status for my ex-husband. We got married in a courthouse and 6 months later we got married in a church. This did not make a bit of difference in the interview for AOS.

I think after your fiance visa gets approved and after you get married, thats when you will apply for AOS. For fiance visa, you don't really have to specify wedding plans, at least I did'nt. For AOS, they are more interested in a valid relationship then in a lavish wedding.

During my AOS interview with my ex-husband they asked us questions like, if you want to call your fiance at work what number would you use. Or they asked about the birthdate. I had an attorney present with me during the interview and she said that it helps to have legal presence and it reduces the amount of questions.

I hope that helps

jordanianprincess

[Jenn! 918]

I wouldn't worry, Sarah. What you're planning is very common with a K1 visa. In fact, they tell you NOT to make wedding plans until after your visa is in hand. Being that it is logistically almost impossible to plan a full-scale wedding in 90 days, a courthouse marriage within the 90 days followed by a more traditional affair when the couple wants is not a problem.

Jenn

[dollface41601 0]

getting married is the only requirement for a k1....the type of wedding u have wouldnt be an issue

[UmmSqueakster 54]

Nope, I still haven't had a fancy wedding, and we had no wedding plans at the time of the interivew. I did however, email the embassy every week after Tamer was interviewed, asking about when we'd get the visa so we could start planning our wedding.

We got married at a local mosque with no family and friends and with complete strangers as our witnesses. It was definately an interesting way to meet people and be introduced into the community

[honeyblonde 0]

I would think that the embassy might look at having definite wedding plans before the visa was issued as a negative thing rather than a positive one. There is no guarantee the fiancee visa will be issued at a certain time so how can you know when to plan for? I believe I even remember seeing something in some of the instructions somewhere that outright say not to make any definite travel plans until your visa is issued. This would be even more important a guideline when planning something as expensive as a wedding.

As for having an attorney, from what I've seen and experienced, an attorney is going to be absolutely useless in Morocco. The paperwork is not that difficult if English is your first language and you have any experience at all doing any kind of paperwork. You also have all of us here to help you with that.

I found out in my last marriage that immigration will not tell your attorney any more than they will tell you so having them around won't get you any farther any faster than doing it yourself. I've also seen a lot of people's attorneys make stupid mistakes that the person wouldn't have made themself.

I say all this as a future attorney. Immigration law is just too diverse for one attorney to know every country and how things will go there, unless they have a lot of experience with that country. If one must insist on an attorney, I'd recommend one from a site like this where they are going to have the experiences of a lot of people to go to for research - but you can do that same research yourself if you take the time to read here.

I would recommend an attorney if you have trouble with English, or if you are just plain paperwork illiterate. If you do hire an attorney, I'd still recommend checking everything really carefully before they send it in.

[jordanianprincess 0]

I would have to agree about the whole attorney thing. In the company where I work, I do alot of immgration filing for employees so naturally I went to see the attorney our company uses when I wanted to file the for the Fiance visa.

I was surprised when my attorney told me I didnt really need his help. I guess since I use him so much from a work standpoint, he was honest with me. He said that for the bargain price of $1000 he would fill out the paperwork, and thats all he could do.

I think honeyblonde is right, check your paperwork! I got a tip from attorney that did help. He told me that once I completed filling out the paperwork, I could take it down to my local service center for review before mailing it out. That's exactly what I did and it helped! You can even make appointments online at infopass.gov and they are pretty easy to get (at least where I live). DON"T GO WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT!