Scandi

What do you mean by "during her stay here"? You make it sound like she has no plans on moving to the US, only staying briefly?

Legally she cannot work without having both SSN and a document allowing her to work (EAD in her case). My husband was self-employed and mostly working from home when I moved here and obviously I helped him with his work instead of just sitting around. Would've been super awkward staying in bed all day while he was working hard in the next room. 🤣

It's almost certain that you will have an interview for either the AOS or the ROC. Since you didn't have one for AOS you're very likely to have one for ROC instead. Only in rare cases both interviews are waived, so don't count on that happening. The interviews are super easy and nothing to worry about. I always loved the interviews when I went through the process, it was fun and very interesting. I would've easily had an interview at every step if I could choose.

Not sure I understood it correctly, but here goes.. So with your current joint bank account situation, your wife doesn't appear to be using it other than to transfer a fixed amount into it every month? IF that's the case, even if both of your names are on it (are they?), that's not considered a joint bank account in regards to what USCIS wants to see and won't help anything in regards to proving co-mingled finances. With joint checking bank accounts they want to see both of you actively using it, spending money via it etc. If her only relation to that account is putting a fixed amount of money into it every month, and not using it in any other way, that doesn't really prove anything. To USCIS, that could be her just paying off a personal loan she got from you, or her being your room mate and paying her part of the rent that way, or whatever. It doesn't help proving a bonafide marriage. Do you have savings accounts, money markets or other financial "savings" in both of your names? If you do, send proof of that.

You don't need to go to court if you want to take your spouse's last name, the marriage certificate is the name change document if you decide to take their name. You can for instance bring your marriage certificate to SSA and update your name today. For other types of name changes (ie first/middle name, not related to marriage), you need to either go through court or wait until you file the N-400. For USCIS however, since you already filed, it's a hit or miss trying to get them to update your info. Legally it's not an issue, you have the marriage certificate to prove your name change, but it's well-known making changes with USCIS (whether it's a name or an address) is usually a royal pain in the butt. So you greencard may or may not have your married name on it if you send USCIS a letter or bring it up at a potential interview. You haven't filled out your timeline so it's harder to know how likely you are to get an interview or not. I had a name issue with my AOS application and was lucky enough to get an interview, so I could fix the name issue right there and then.

It means adding as much evidence of a bonafide relationship as possible with the actual petition. Most of us hardly sent any evidence at all with the petition (other than proof of having met in person). We brought all the rest of our evidence to the visa interview at the consular stage, and we did fine because we interviewed in low-fraud countries. For high-fraud countries, many VJers will tell you to frontload the actual petition so the consular officer already has a lot of it on hand before the visa interview. Many times it appears that the CO has already made up his mind before the actual interview, and will refuse to look at any evidence you bring in person.

You should always expect to have your biometrics taken with every single petition you file. Some get their reused, but the normal is still to have new biometrics with every petition.