Yes, we know that now. Unfortunately we can’t time travel back two years and get married instead. We opted for K-1 at the time because we believed the wait would be shorter, as it was before COVID. From this vantage point, it probably would have been more or less the same wait time and the CR-1 is superior in basically every other respect.
We’re hoping to expedite EAD since my fiancés employer wants to continue to employ him in the US and will provide an offer letter to do so.