Questions before filing in Ukraine

[Defy Physics 0]

Hello everyone!

My wife and I just got married two weeks ago and are finishing up filling in forms, translating things and gathering everything needed for filing for IR-1/CR-1 visa.

A little background information. I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer here in Ukraine, and we're postponing the wedding ceremony until June because it is more convenient. Here are my questions.

1. My wife's legal name is in the process of changing. We don't want her legal name to be spelled the way it is (when it has been transliterated from the cyrillic alphabet) when she is in the states. Should we put her transliterated name that will be on her international passport, or how she wants her name to be spelled legally in the states?

2. The second question is about evidence of a bonafide marriage. We haven't had our ceremony yet, so we were planning on sending two affidavits from fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. Should we include anything else, such as pictures of us traveling together or something as evidence of our relationship/marriage?

Thanks for your help! This website has been an absolute life-saver so far, and I'm sure it will continue to be throughout the process.

-Casey

[speedwell 224]

Physics, you will have to deal with the name change issue anyway since all of your marriage documentation is in that name. In your position I would wait until the name change is final, if you expect it to be finalized in a matter of weeks, and then proceed, so that you have the legal declaration of name change in hand to respond to any queries. If you expect the name change to take around 4 or 5 months instead, I would proceed under her existing name and present the name change documentation with her visa application. If you expect it to take even longer than that, just proceed under her existing name and worry about changing documents later.

By the way, your marriage dates from when you were married, not from when you had a ceremony. My husband and I got married in a registrar's office, with office clerks as witnesses. You can have a ceremony anytime but your marriage documentation will show when you were actually legally married. We didn't send ANY supporting documentation (though we did send all the basic stuff) due to a misunderstanding, and got approved anyway, but the UK is a low fraud country. Send any evidence you have that you have commingled finances, traveled together, wrote letters, the history of your relationship, pictures of you where you did get married, a wedding announcement if you have them, any evidence that any official agency considered you "together" (does the PC know she is your wife?), a shared apartment lease, anything like that.

Edited March 26, 2013 by speedwell

[Defy Physics 0]

Physics, you will have to deal with the name change issue anyway since all of your marriage documentation is in that name. In your position I would wait until the name change is final, if you expect it to be finalized in a matter of weeks, and then proceed, so that you have the legal declaration of name change in hand to respond to any queries. If you expect the name change to take around 4 or 5 months instead, I would proceed under her existing name and present the name change documentation with her visa application. If you expect it to take even longer than that, just proceed under her existing name and worry about changing documents later.

Thank you very much for the reply! The concern we have actually has to deal with a different alphabet and its transliteration. It's not as much of an issue in the UK since they have the same alphabet and language. For example, on my wife's international passport her first name is Viktoriia because in Ukrainian it is Вікторія. She wants her name in English to actually be Victoria. This goes for transliteration of our last name too, because who knows what they will transliterate my transliterated name to (because there is no absolute correct method of transliteration).

[speedwell 224]

Thank you very much for the reply! The concern we have actually has to deal with a different alphabet and its transliteration. It's not as much of an issue in the UK since they have the same alphabet and language. For example, on my wife's international passport her first name is Viktoriia because in Ukrainian it is Вікторія. She wants her name in English to actually be Victoria. This goes for transliteration of our last name too, because who knows what they will transliterate my transliterated name to (because there is no absolute correct method of transliteration).

Since her first name is listed on her passport in English letters, she must use that until she can provide documentation of the new spelling. You and I know her name is Victoria in English (I personally would have guessed "Viktoriya" as the literal transliteration), but it is the type of little thing that could make trouble if it is not the same on all the forms.

The translation/transliteration must be certified by the translator. That translator can even be you. There is standard boilerplate certification language that needs to be part of the translation. It has been posted in other threads, but I don't remember where it was (since my husband is from the UK, we didn't need it). Someone else will probably be along to refer to the method for this. As the US citizen, your name in English is your name on the forms, no matter what it winds up being transliterated as (why not propose something you like?).