DCF Italy: Marrying the same week as filing at the consulate?

[pastalovas 0]

Hi everyone!

I am a U.S. citizen residing abroad in France. My fiancée to to whom I've been engaged for over a year is an Italian citizen. 

We found out about the DCF process relatively soon after we got engaged and always kept it as an option in between planning for our big traditional civil ceremony. The idea was that if I were to get an offer to relocate to the U.S., we would get a Utah online marriage and file for DCF immediately. If not, we would continue living abroad and file through USCIS. 

Alas I received an offer two weeks ago for an in-person position in the States starting in early February. About five days ago we contacted the consulate in Naples describing our situation and within 48 hours were given an appointment scheduled for next week. We are planning on going through with the online marriage this Monday (in 4 days time) at the latest in order to be legally married prior to filing. We have plenty of evidence of our relationship (affidavits lined up, plane tickets, etc) but are somewhat worried about how the timing of our wedding will be interpreted. On some forums/pages that I've consulted over the past few years, I recall reading that one of the primary purposes of providing evidence of a relationship is to determine whether the marriage was for the primary purposes of immigration. In our case, an officer could lay reasonable claim to both: that we were married at once to be able to file for DCF in time and because we are in love and want to share a life together wherever that may be. 

 

Does anyone have any experience or recall any thread on this forum describing a very recently married couple who successfully petitioned via DCF?

PS.
Just a data point for any future lurkers: yes, we were able to get approval for a filing appointment in Italy despite my foreign residence being in France. The immigration section is requesting French residence documents instead of Italian. Whether or not we were granted this appointment thanks to my fiancée's citizenship, this does somewhat confirm that the DCF process is really at the discretion of the individual consulate and consular FSO. This being the case.. we hope that this degree of discretion will end up helping us come next week. 

Edited 9 hours ago by pastalovas

[pastalovas 0]

Sorry one more question guys: if our paper marriage certificate does not arrive on time, would anyone know if the consulate would accept a printed digital certificate during filing? We likely will receive a paper certificate on time for the interview if we get to that stage.