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Thanks for weighing in. A detailed fire ritual and going around the fire 7 times uttering marriage vows is a central part of a Hindu wedding, which is typically performed at a temple/wedding hall. At the same time, every Puja/Homam (a casual religious worship) also has a fire ritual, and is typically performed at personal residences (although community level fire rituals are also performed at a Temple) In our case, we did nothing close to a wedding, except for the appearance of a 'fire pit' in one of the photos that we submitted of the Puja (religious worship celebrating the engagement), which was just attended by immediate family at a private residence. In case of India, 'local' practices are too diverse and vary widely across cities, regions, etc. The K-1 consultate is in Mumbai, a Western Indian region, whereas my fiance hails from the Souther Indian region. Therein lies my worry of a misconstural by the CO of our casual, home Puja involving a fire ritual as having the appearance of a wedding, since both can involve a fire ritual. Wonder if anyone with a deeper understanding of the Indian cultural nuances and/or any similar experiences with the Mumbai Consulate can comment/share their experience with similar nuances?

Hi Folks, We applied for a K-1 in October 2022, got the NOA1 and waiting for the NOA2. Back in August 2022, before applying for the K-1, we had an engagement ceremony with friends and family. We also had a small family gathering wherein we performed a Devi pooja (religious worhsip) involving a Fire ritual, to celebrate the engagement. We had submitted ample photos from the engagement ceremony in our LOIs, as well as some photos of the Devi Puja (a celebratory religious worship) involving a fire ritual in one of the Supporting Affidavits from my family members, supporting our intent to marry, and clearly mentioning that it's photos just photos from a religious extension of the Engagement celebration. Read elsewhere on these forums that any inclusion of photos involving 'Fire rituals' within the engagement proof submitted as a part of the I-129F package have the potential to be misconstrued by the CO as an 'appearance' of an informal, unregistered 'Hindu' wedding, and can be used as grounds to deny the I-129F petition by the Consular Officer, under INA 214(b). Should I be concerned? What can we do in terms of any additional proof/documents to carry to the interview, to assuage any concerns or misconstruals by the CO of the post-engagement Puja (celebratory worship service with a fire ritual) as a wedding, which it is actually NOT? Thanks in anticipation of your thoughts/opinions!

Oh Ok. I joined another thread here specifically for Oct2022 filers/NOA1, but could not find any K1 Mumbai thread. My NOA1 is 26oct22 and Visajourney’s estimate for NOA2 is Dec ‘23

Oh OK. Thanks so much. Hope someone can post a sample NVC email here (with all personal info blurred out of course). Also, I visited the official traveldocs website that you suggested and their instructions seem to confirm the process that you confirmed too. Thx! https://www.ustraveldocs.com/in/en/immigrant-visa#kvisa

Thank you so much! Do you know of any official references that state/confirm this process? I’m still waiting for NOA2, so have not received anything from NVC yet. Thx!

Once NOA2 is received and NVC processes and generates a Case Number, I heard elsewhere that K-1 filers do not need to wait for any Interview Letter (IL) from the Embassy. After NVC Case Number is generated, is the next step just to login to the Embassy/Consulate website (Mumbai in my case) and schedule an interview appointment? If so, where do we upload any documents like tax returns, PCC, etc. to get Documentarily Qualified (DQ)? Or is it that for K-1, we just need to complete DS-160 and prepare all the requisite documents (petitioner's tax returns, beneficiary's PCC, birth cert, etc.) to submit/show at the Interview? Thanks in advance!

Once NOA2 is received and NVC processes and generates a Case Number, I heard elsewhere that K-1 filers do not need to wait for any Interview Letter (IL) from the Embassy. After NVC Case Number is generated, is the next step just to login to the Embassy/Consulate website (Mumbai in my case) and schedule an interview appointment? If so, where do we upload any documents like tax returns, PCC, etc. to get Documentarily Qualified (DQ)? Or is it that for K-1, we just need to complete DS-160 and prepare all the requisite documents (petitioner's tax returns, beneficiary's PCC, birth cert, etc.) to submit/show at the Interview? Thanks in advance!

OK. Thank you so much! That's consistent with what I suspected/read somewhere else earlier too. Thanks for the tip about how the NOA id is linked to the processing SC. But, in that case, wonder why the USCIS site (https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/) show different processing times for different SCs, for the K-1 category, instead of showing only the CSC times and/or instead of indicating on other SC pages something to the effect that 'All K-1/129-Fs are processed at the CSC only.

Also, if it's not true that K1s get processed only at the CSC, then how can we find out which SC is a given case assigned to, based on the NOA1?

On the USCIS processing times site, for K1/129-F, the avg wait time for VSC/PotomacSC is listed as 8-8.5 months now vs. 4 months (!) for NSC, but 15.5 mo for CSC. How do we find out which center is applicable to a given case? I read somewhere on this forum (or elsewhere) that all K1s get processed only at CSC? If so, why does the USCIS site list these avg numbers/estimates for all other processing centers for the K1/129-F category?