Visa approved, no "dam Hoi", no "Engagement" ..blah..blah.blah..

[xgrnberet1 19]

that sounds super quick.

i was asking in regards to when you file the actual k1 I 129, to USCIS, to finally when you got the approval from USCIS. i think for one person, it took about 4 months. i was just wondering how long it took for you. im in the initial review stages, the early stages of the process..

thanks again!

cyntek, the wait was almost 6 months, but, once it was approved, the rest of the process ( all the way to when the interview take place), will take almost 4 months. its took 10 months total for my fiancee and I together in the state. Good luck and goo journey.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

My Fiancee Visa was approved, waited almost over 4 hours , 5 minutes interview, 3 minutes of that relating to my divorced (5 years ago), didn't ask for pictures, didn't ask about "Dam Hoi", "Engagement party", or " wedding party" , blah..blah..blah...not everybody is traditional as I said earlier , may be some, and the Consulate DO NOT, and I said again, DO NOT required you to have "Dam Hoi", or "Engagement Party" as many BS rumors from all the dramas Kings and Queens indicated, I only visited my fiancee ONCE!! they didn't look at any pics or chat logs etc... as long as you turned in all corrected documents and met all the requirements they asked for, and everything will be approved ahead of time , as we all knew this. So there,DO NOT buying into "Dam Hoi", this " Engagement Party" that in addition to dressing up traditional outfits to impressed the consular (this just make it more suspicious, because its been know in VN, they do fake ceremonies for a price, to make it more believable to the consulate) and wasting all your hard earned money and vacation time ,and enjoy it when she is here in the States. These are the questions was asked: NO BS no dramas.

-How we met

-How many time I visited and how long we spent time together

-Where and when I proposed to marry her

-What is my job title

-What I do for living

-What is the name of the company name I'm currently work for

-Do you know he served in the US Arm Forces, and do you know how long he served

-Why did I divorce my ex (they was very interested in my past marriage, fiancee keep answering the exact same answer "they didn't get along")

-What was the reasons that lead to divorced (still very interested in my past marriage)

-Why couldn't I work it out with my ex and resolved the problems (they finally gave in and stop asking more questions relating to my past marriage)

- The man who was interviewing her finally told her, your Visa is approved

This is a late response (I don't check in here often these days), but it needs to be said.

You misunderstand why people say you should have a dam hoi. It's not because it's a requirement for a visa, but because it's an extremely convenient excuse to deny a visa. When they deny a visa they have to send the petition back to USCIS with a recommendation that the approval be revoked. They have to provide a concrete reason for returning the petition, and it has to be based on evidence that the USCIS adjudicator wasn't aware of at the time the petition was approved. This pretty much means it must be something that was discovered by the consulate either before or during the interview. The discovery that the relationship doesn't conform to some local social custom is powerful evidence for the consulate, and difficult evidence for USCIS to counter.

A little focused Google search turns up lots of cases right here on VJ where the consular officer cited the lack of a dam hoi as one of the reasons for denying the visa:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/317542-k1-file-return-to-uscis-for-possible-revocation-or-denial/

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/224353-fiance-visa-denied/

http://www.visajourney.com/reviews/view-dos-cis-reviews.php?entry=5203

There's lots more, if you care to look. A good search phrase for Google is "contradicts social and cultural norms".

The fact that you didn't have a dam hoi and were approved for a visa proves only that the CO wasn't looking for a reason to deny you. Either your ducks were otherwise in a neat row, or you were lucky and got a good CO or caught the CO on a good day. That doesn't mean you should advise other people that they don't need to bother with a dam hoi. It's an established fact that CO's use the dam hoi as a reason to deny. Why hand them a reason?

BTW, you are correct that an obviously staged engagement celebration is more likely to raise suspicions than it is to suppress them. However, it's not the dressing up in traditional outfits that raises their suspicion. It's the fact that there are very few people in attendance at the ceremony, all of them are dressed rather informally except for the intending bride and groom, and all of them are from the bride's family. It's the fact that the ceremony was not preceded by the traditional procession of the groom's family, or that the procession was small consisting of a handful of the bride's relatives standing in for the groom's family. It's the fact that the celebration afterward included two dozen or fewer people, and was held at the bride's home or a small local restaurant.

Not every family participates in these old customs anymore, especially in the larger cities, but those that do usually take it seriously. They spend a couple of months planning things, they get lots of people involved, and usually spend at least several thousand dollars. The bottom line is if the VN fiancee's family believes it's real then it's real, and the CO's have seen enough of these to recognize the real ones from the fake ones.

[DreamNHope 9]

This is a late response (I don't check in here often these days), but it needs to be said.

You misunderstand why people say you should have a dam hoi. It's not because it's a requirement for a visa, but because it's an extremely convenient excuse to deny a visa. When they deny a visa they have to send the petition back to USCIS with a recommendation that the approval be revoked. They have to provide a concrete reason for returning the petition, and it has to be based on evidence that the USCIS adjudicator wasn't aware of at the time the petition was approved. This pretty much means it must be something that was discovered by the consulate either before or during the interview. The discovery that the relationship doesn't conform to some local social custom is powerful evidence for the consulate, and difficult evidence for USCIS to counter.

A little focused Google search turns up lots of cases right here on VJ where the consular officer cited the lack of a dam hoi as one of the reasons for denying the visa:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/317542-k1-file-return-to-uscis-for-possible-revocation-or-denial/

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/224353-fiance-visa-denied/

http://www.visajourney.com/reviews/view-dos-cis-reviews.php?entry=5203

There's lots more, if you care to look. A good search phrase for Google is "contradicts social and cultural norms".

The fact that you didn't have a dam hoi and were approved for a visa proves only that the CO wasn't looking for a reason to deny you. Either your ducks were otherwise in a neat row, or you were lucky and got a good CO or caught the CO on a good day. That doesn't mean you should advise other people that they don't need to bother with a dam hoi. It's an established fact that CO's use the dam hoi as a reason to deny. Why hand them a reason?

BTW, you are correct that an obviously staged engagement celebration is more likely to raise suspicions than it is to suppress them. However, it's not the dressing up in traditional outfits that raises their suspicion. It's the fact that there are very few people in attendance at the ceremony, all of them are dressed rather informally except for the intending bride and groom, and all of them are from the bride's family. It's the fact that the ceremony was not preceded by the traditional procession of the groom's family, or that the procession was small consisting of a handful of the bride's relatives standing in for the groom's family. It's the fact that the celebration afterward included two dozen or fewer people, and was held at the bride's home or a small local restaurant.

Not every family participates in these old customs anymore, especially in the larger cities, but those that do usually take it seriously. They spend a couple of months planning things, they get lots of people involved, and usually spend at least several thousand dollars. The bottom line is if the VN fiancee's family believes it's real then it's real, and the CO's have seen enough of these to recognize the real ones from the fake ones.

Shorter version of Jim's response "Better safe than sorry!":)