Organising the wedding far enough in advance?

[CYJC 0]

Hi all,

 

I have read on this forum that organising a wedding with a set date can cause troubles since you never know if your visa will be processed in time or not. But I am wondering if anyone has managed it and the kind of time frame they had going. It is important for my Dad to see me get married and he would really like a proper wedding. However he can only really go on holidays during a set time every year due to his work, so it is important to get the timing right for him. Plus we have other guests coming who need more than a couple months heads up to plan and organise. 

 

My current plan is to have a wedding date of around August 27th 2019, with us applying for the K1 by May 15th 2018 at the latest. This would give us almost 16 months for visa processing & moving. Reasoning for this is that it is taking around 10-12 months for processing currently and I have heard that you do not have to move right away after the visa is approve, that you are given like 6 months to move (?). Does this plan seem reasonable? Is any of my information wrong?

 

Thank you,

 

CY

[geowrian 22,337]

That date isn't unreasonable, but times can quickly and vastly change between filing and when you actually get the visa. There's no way to guarantee a set timeframe, although you can delay the process to a reasonable point (just not speed it up). And yes, the visa is valid for at most 6 months, but is constrained by the validity period of the medical results (typically also 6 months). Then you would have 90 days to marry once inside the US.

 

If a large/well-planned wedding celebration is your goal, and since being together as quickly as possible is not a concern (you're looking at Q3 2019), I suggest getting married doing a CR-1 visa instead. Then you can plan the wedding however you want without worrying about processing timelines. Once married, you can start the immigration process. You can also visit (via an ESTA I'm assuming here) as normal during the processing. It would basically be sliding the separation period until after you are married instead of in front of it, but otherwise it's a far superior process (no AOS required, cheaper, can work and travel right away, etc.).

[CYJC 0]

7 minutes ago, geowrian said:

That date isn't unreasonable, but times can quickly and vastly change between filing and when you actually get the visa. There's no way to guarantee a set timeframe, although you can delay the process to a reasonable point (just not speed it up). And yes, the visa is valid for at most 6 months, but is constrained by the validity period of the medical results (typically also 6 months). Then you would have 90 days to marry once inside the US.

 

If a large/well-planned wedding celebration is your goal, and since being together as quickly as possible is not a concern (you're looking at Q3 2019), I suggest getting married doing a CR-1 visa instead. Then you can plan the wedding however you want without worrying about processing timelines. Once married, you can start the immigration process. You can also visit (via an ESTA I'm assuming here) as normal during the processing. It would basically be sliding the separation period until after you are married instead of in front of it, but otherwise it's a far superior process (no AOS required, cheaper, can work and travel right away, etc.).

 

We don't actually want a large wedding. It will be tiny regardless, it is more organising people from 3 countries is difficult with work/costs/etc. 

 

We have seriously considered doing a CR-1 however we decided against it due to financial reasons. Even though it is cheaper visa cost wise, it has a more significant impact on our other financials. The main reason for us waiting until Q3 2019 is that I am finishing off my degree in Aus and I won't graduate until June, otherwise we would be doing ASAP. 

 

Thanks for your reply, it seems like we may just have to hope and if closer it looks like it won't work, change it. 

[DollyDolly 278]

8 hours ago, CYJC said:

Hi all,

 

I have read on this forum that organising a wedding with a set date can cause troubles since you never know if your visa will be processed in time or not. But I am wondering if anyone has managed it and the kind of time frame they had going. It is important for my Dad to see me get married and he would really like a proper wedding. However he can only really go on holidays during a set time every year due to his work, so it is important to get the timing right for him. Plus we have other guests coming who need more than a couple months heads up to plan and organise. 

 

My current plan is to have a wedding date of around August 27th 2019, with us applying for the K1 by May 15th 2018 at the latest. This would give us almost 16 months for visa processing & moving. Reasoning for this is that it is taking around 10-12 months for processing currently and I have heard that you do not have to move right away after the visa is approve, that you are given like 6 months to move (?). Does this plan seem reasonable? Is any of my information wrong?

 

Thank you,

 

CY

Sounds like you have set yourself a reasonable timescale. But do not set anything in stone - e.g. make large non-refundable wedding payments for venues etc, unless you are willing to risk the money.

 

You are correct about the 6 months. Once your visa is issued, you have 6 months to use it to enter the US, otherwise if you are outside the 6 months you need to do the K1 application process again.

 

We sent our K1 application in May 2017 - I am having my interview March 16th. Have seen many with a similar timescale.

[Little_Vixen 1,869]

3 minutes ago, LucyDolly said:

You are correct about the 6 months. Once your visa is issued, you have 6 months to use it to enter the US, otherwise if you are outside the 6 months you need to do the K1 application process again.

@CYJC Keep in mind that your medical must still be valid too. The medical is usually only valid for 6 months, sometimes only 3 if you have medical conditions. Since you usually have your medical prior to the interview (sometimes by a month or more) often the medical is the deciding document.

[AshMarty 360]

HI There, 

 

  My husband really wanted a wedding with his family and a couple of friends from Australia present in the US. We did manage to make it work but there is always a luck component to it as well. We had a 50 person wedding at a house on the water we rented for a week (we had his family from Australia stay at the house for the week, it was my families gift to his family), it was an amazing day.

 

We actually had to make an effort to slow down the process at the time so the visa didn't expire before he was going to enter the country. I think we rescheduled his interview a couple weeks later to make our wedding schedule work. 

 

Something I wish I did do: I told a co-worker the gamble I was taking with planning the wedding while waiting for the K1. She said she was in a similar situation with her now husband because his deployment dates were always changing. She suggested having each vendor write in a clause that they will not lose the deposit if the date falls through, but they will be able to use the funds, to reschedule the wedding on another available date. I thought this was a great suggestion. She actually did end up losing the date and had to reschedule but didnt lose any money in the long term because of the clauses. 

Edited February 15, 2018 by AshMarty

[AshMarty 360]

On 2/7/2018 at 7:52 AM, Little_Vixen said:

@CYJC Keep in mind that your medical must still be valid too. The medical is usually only valid for 6 months, sometimes only 3 if you have medical conditions. Since you usually have your medical prior to the interview (sometimes by a month or more) often the medical is the deciding document.

Now that you mention it, this is what we had to reschedule. We actually did the math to make sure that the medical was no more than 6 months out for my now husbands planned immigration date for our wedding. We gave him a 2 week until expiration safety net, in case something happened before the move to the US.

 

Again there is a large component of luck in this process and you do have to be mentally prepared for it to fall apart if the visa doesn't go smoothly. We were lucky that ours did go smoothly. 

Edited February 15, 2018 by AshMarty

[Unlockable 7,314]

39 minutes ago, AshMarty said:

 

Something I wish I did do: I told a co-worker the gamble I was taking with planning the wedding while waiting for the K1. She said she was in a similar situation with her now husband because his deployment dates were always changing. She suggested having each vendor write in a clause that they will not lose the deposit if the date falls through, but they will be able to use the funds, to reschedule the wedding on another available date. I thought this was a great suggestion. She actually did end up losing the date and had to reschedule but didnt lose any money in the long term because of the clauses. 

Excellent advice!

[OutOfThisWorld 87]

Have you considered just marrying first and then filing for CR-1 visa instead?

 

The biggest potential benefit of K-1 visa over CR-1 is timing until US entry. But you are not using that benefit by giving yourself the extra cushions on dates. So what is the point of K-1 for you?