K1 visa - After NOA2...

[Melisandre 5]

Hey guys! We just received NOA2! (K1 visa - Going to Houston, Texas from Ottawa, Ontario)

I was getting very worried since it had been over 6 months since we received NOA1. I had a few things in mind that I wanted to ask you about and I'm so excited that I'm getting distracted so I'll try to keep it short and simple.

1) Do you think it would be too risky now to aim for a March wedding? Is it impossible to get it all done in the next 5 months?

2) We just got a new house (in Texas) and my fiance will be moving sometime in October. Would this address change be a problem?

3) I know the next step is to call the visa center after 2 weeks..but I'm a little confused about my next step from here. Do I have to contact the Montreal embassy regarding my NOA2 or do they contact me till it gets to that point.

4) The NOA2 letter says it expires by December 2014. What happens if I don't get contacted by the embassy by then?

Thank you so much you guys.

[Ian H. 207]

Hello,

1. You can start planning your wedding whenever you want, but you shouldn't make any concrete plans until the visa is issued. The timing can vary greatly based on workload, but 5 months may be possible depending how soon everything gets done.

2. Not at all. Just notify the NVC of the new address.

3. When the NVC receives your petition, they will notify you. It can take up to 30 days.

4. The CO can renew the petition, so don't worry about that.

[Rob & Monika 87]

March seems reasonable if you were born in Canada, though it's always a gamble to pay for something when you don't have the visa in hand yet. Generally, plan for it to take 2-3 months from NOA2 for Montreal. If you were not born in Canada, the process may take longer depending on your country of origin, MENA countries can delay receiving the visa considerably after the interview.

You can start preparing the next phase of documents that are needed for the interview, which are on the last page of http://photos.state.gov/libraries/canada/303578/montreal/Packet3-K1-MTL.pdf.%C2'> As soon as you have your MTL case number, you can proceed to do the first part of packet 3.

Address change is not a problem, everything is done over email from this point on. Visa will be shipped to the nearest Loomis/DHL center that you choose.

[Udella&Wiz 325]

Wedding dates should be moving targets, as you get closer you may get a better feel. I would not book any venues with non refundable deposits though. We've seen people on VJ get screwed in the past because they make the mistake of making plans that are etched in stone.

You can scope out venues or have your US fiancé do it - if there's a church or a park or a historical location you can certainly work opn approximate dates. You can certainly make selections for dresses, decorations, food ideas etc...without commiting to anything yet,

Once we had an actual interview date, we tentatively projected our wedding date and solidified the plans for family members who were coming, but we still asked them not to buy plane tickets until we were sure or our approval after the interview. I didn't move until a month after my interview approval and then got married almost 3 weeks after that. We got married in our living room so we knew the venue would be available

[Allanah and Chris 8]

We gave ourselves quite a bit of time (you can see from my signature below), having an intimate family wedding on short notice after POE and planning a large reception (+cerephony) five months later.

MTL is slow, but predictably so (1-3 weeks for the MTL number, 1-2 weeks to process packet 3, 80-120 days until interview, 1-2 weeks for the card). You can be reasonably assured that 6 months from MTL issuing you a case number to receiving your visa is a worst case. This presumes you have nothing funny going on with your visa, your I's are dotted, your T's are crossed, and you've paid in full and on time. However, this is much like horse shoes or hand grenades...its been known to be worse.