Cranberry_anon

Early in our relationship I started scrapbooks our adventures. I'm very sentimental and had made a habit of collecting things like brochures, cinema tickets, little trinkets from gift shops in places we went on dates, receipts from dinners, etc. as keepsakes to keep in the scrapbook alongside pictures. Thing is... a LOT of recipts/tickets/etc. are in glued in here and double stuck down with things like stickers and having photos layered on top of them. I can't remove them from the scrapbook without destroying them. Is it acceptable to take the scrapbook with me to the interview? Or is that just me being cheeky? An example attached below. Face blurred for privacy:

I'm inclined to follow this thought process too. I'm very often told to keep my evidence minimal (this is partially because we're a straight foward case and I'm from Ireland), but I have so much available that I feel like I'd be holding myself back by not bringing everything I have. Ireland is generally successful but I too am worried about being assigned to someone having a bad morning and deciding that today is the day to be a stickler

We honest to god could be twins. This sounds so much like me. One question: what filled up a majority of 500 pages? I'm also going a tiny bit overkill but in my case it's proof of relationship evidence.

I'm a bit of a neat freak when it comes to documents. I get it from working in offices, always hate to see documents not in a file/folder/etc. The USCIS advises not to use a binder for application submissions but funny enough I don't think it says anything about not bringing a binder to the interview. Is it alright to organise documents for the interview in a binder or do they prefer it loose/envelope/etc? I don't want to look or feel messy

This is not for the i-129f. I am aware of that, as they did not ask for a timeline. The timeline in question is for people who have been asked to have a timeline prepared for the interview. The reason I'm asking is because there are Irish people online talking about bringing a timeline to the interview and then from looking into it I seen other people from other countries that also brought timelines and wanted to know if the one I prepared (just in case I am asked for one) is long enough since people have varying lengths for what they brought

No, he was asking about his timeline. I was wondering too because in my head I assumed a timeline could not possibly need to be longer than maybe a maximum of 3 pages, maybe 4 if it's a loooooong relationship, so I wanted to double check that I wasn't being naive thinking I could turn up with a few decent paragraphs Ours was also about 2 pages long which seems reasonable to me. I've seen some posts (multiple forums, not just here, and some experiences shares on youtube/tiktok/twitter) where their time lines were maybe 5+ pages but usually less than 10. The 40 pager was the longest one I've seen. I'm glad I'm coming into this with a decent 2 page draft From having read experiences of other Irish people marrying an American they all had time lines. It can't hurt to have one ready even if I'm not asked for, just in case

I thought I'd ask since I seen a variety of answers online ranging from 1 to 40 pages. I'll write a Silmarillion level account of what happened if I have to but I'll be embarrassed if I get there and they only want about 2 pages of basic details.

Thank you so much, this is very reassuring. I'm a sensitive person very much in the habit of working myself into a tizzy over hypothetical failures and I think as long as I keep what you detailed in mind then I should be alright going foward. At this point my packet is essentially exploding with everything I put in it so perhaps I have more going for me than I typically believe I do.

I'm so focused on it because when I announced the engagement a lot of people told me that a long distance relationship of 18 months is not a real relationship. As I said in an earlier post, these things are not well supported where I am, and for that reason I don't think it's really that strange for me to worry that someone reviewing our evidence would think exactly the same thing. It may come off as unusual and I acknowledge that but I put so much weight on this specific factor because it crushes me to think we could be denied approval based on our relationship being considered abnormal (relative to the relationship standard where I am from). I hope that makes more sense

Maybe a lot of my worries are because where I'm from (Dublin, Ireland) my relationship would be perceived as highly unusual. My immediate assumption is that it would be viewed by the people looking at our application would think the same. It's difficult to break out of that line of thinking as I was raised with that idea, it's very reassuring to have people tell me otherwise because god knows a lot of people around me would tell me right off the bat that 18 months is barely enough time to call it a longterm relationship, and that's if you're ignore the lack of family integration since it's so normal here to have your partner be in near constant contact with your family. I'd be very interested in heating some thoughts from people who are from similar backgrounds too

We're not as worried about those, our main concern is how we're going to legitimise our relationship when (at least by Irish standards) it's considered highly unusual to get married earlier than 5 or so years together and not be well integrated into eachothers families.

Yikes, do you think maybe it could reflect badly that we haven't lived together either? A lot of my concern stems from the fact we have a relatively short relationship compared to what would be considered normal in Ireland. Most couples are together for 5+ years before marriage, yada yada, and we haven't lived together yet/had any joint accounts

I already know what some people are going to say because I posted a similar thread a short while ago, but we're working with an immigration agency that has been guiding us through the process. We did quite a bit of research before we went along with the agency and we're a bit lost as the internet/people say one thing but then the attorney/""experts"" advising us will tell us another. We're still quite new to this so we're still finding our footing discerning what is absolutely true and what is a weird piece of misinfo we got from the agency (and on thay note if anyone is thinking of investing in an agency- don't choose Boundless)

Out of curiosity, is there a waiting period after being rejected for the K1 before we could try it through the CR-1 route? I know K-1 has a waiting period to try another attempts at the K-1 if the first was failed

We considered taking this route if the initial attempt at K1 falls through and we are rejected/denied permission to get married in the USA. It's sort of a back up plan (or potentially something we consider doing if the processing time for the K1 takes too long)

I am 24/f/Ireland and my fiancé is 25/m/Oklahoma. I'm worried about our proof of relationship (I'm generally a very anxious person) and I'd like some outsider perspective. We've been together for just over 18 months and decided to get married this past August. The reason I'm worried is because yes I acknowledge for most people thats very soon to get married, but one other thing: we don't have a lot of documented evidence that I've been around his friends and family or that he's been around mine. How bad is this going to look for my application? Do you think it's grounds for being rejected? Niether of us are close to our families. One of the things we bonded over is a shared understanding of what it was like growing up through similar problems. He doesn't hang around with his family pretty much ever and the side of my family that I engage with lives in a different part of Ireland. The short version is that we don't have pictures of me and him together with members of our families (it doesn't help that it's usually my fiancé offering to take the picture so he's behind the camera). We have *some* with his friends because... I took the pictures and I'm holding the camera myself so I'm not actually featured in many of the pictures.

An update for anyone still following the thread: I did end up ordering the translated certificate. I'll admit I jumped the gun and ordered it before I posted here. I think I reacted too quickly to them asking for it and made a dumb decision out of frustration instead of taking a step back and waiting until I was less stressed. In the time since then I've come to realise that a lot of the negative feelings I'm having are not coming from the application itself, rather it is coming from having other factors surrounding the process that are making it feel like much more than it is

We kinda had a talk about it 3 nights ago. Full transparency: I broke over the realisation that things weren't going as quickly/efficiently on his end as they were on mind. We had a long conversation and he apologised, we discussed why he was procrastinating and I'm trying my best to see his side of things. On my end I'm also very anxious to do paperwork but I'm still getting things done so when I lightly grilled him about this his explanation was that he puts things off because it looks like it's so much, which I already knew because I essentially read all the instructions and explain it to him in a shorter simpler way. It did initially hurt me because there were whole weekends he would get completely distracted by fixating on non-visa things and I felt like I was being hung out to dry but he understands now that he's hurt me by doing these things and has made a bit more effort to pick up his side of things since we had that discussion. I'm choosing to trust him because the alternative is to not trust him which is me giving up on the K1. As it stands I've laid things out in a Google doc seperate from Boundless where he leaves his documents and I'm in charge of uploading/captioning/communication with the agency.

Hey guys, I'm back, sorry for the late response. The daily post limit caught me off guard yesterday so I waited until I was home from work today to come back. I've calmed down a bit in the time since I've made my initial post. I read all your stories, advice, suggestions, etc. while my post limit was in effect and I have mixed feelings. I'm so excited to be taking this route in life but so anxious whenever I start seeing all the things that can go wrong. At its core my fear comes from the possibility of having to start again if a small mistake shuts the whole thing down. I'm afraid that I won't be able to stop my partner from dragging their feet because they're overwhelmed and afraid that I'm going to miss a step that ruins our efforts so far. I forget sometimes that this is just the beginning. That is both comforting and terrifying.

Is Boundless really that bad? Are they known for being difficult?

We invested in an immigration agency that was recommended to my fiancé living in the states. They told him this agency had helped them navigate the process so he could bring his wife into America, it's called Boundless. The way it works is that you submit your documents and they review it then an agent critiques your submissions and what to change. They're really strict poking holes in everything despite following their guides to a T and using examples/advice from other people who have gone through the process of getting a K1. Sometimes I wonder if they're trying to make this go on longer than it needs to because they tend to contradict themselves and change the rules on a whim sometimes.

It just feels so hopeless sometimes. I'm sorry for coming to the forum right off the bat with a big sad rant, I'm usually a very bubbly person, but god it's just these last few days I've been going insane from the pressure. When these random hurdles come up I can't help but think "god is this all for nothing? Am I going to do this song and dance just to get rejected for missing out on something small like this?"

Our immigration agency pointed out that this is common for anyone in Ireland looking to get a K1 visa. I was skeptical of this at first however the translator some our later correspondence confirmed that a lot of people do end up submitting birth certs for translation to their company because of this very bizarre request regardless of what route people are taking to the K1 (Agency, by themselves, immigration attorney, etc.) Maybe it's more common in Ireland?

The full English translation is on the birth certificate. In Ireland a birth cert is fully in English, with tiny Irish text underneath or beside it. You could hand my birth certificate to any American and they would be able to read it perfectly fine, but somehow this is some kind of inadvertent magic spell that blinds anyone who works in VISA approval

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I'm 24/F/Ireland and I'm working alongside my fiancé (25/M/Oklahoma) to get a K1 visa for marriage in the states. The process is like Chinese water torture. It's just constantly dripping new obstacles and errors over and over until I go insane. Today I was notified that my birth certificate (printed in English when it was issued to my parents from the Irish government the day I was born) is in fact not written in English and I must now have it translated. Why, you may ask? Because *beside* the English, in small faint text, is Irish Gaeilge put there for the Irish people who can't speak English. The professional translator herself is equally baffled by this. I feel so hopeless sometimes. It's bad enough we fell into the Boundless Immigration trap, it's worse that I have to juggle these <DELETED> requests on top of making peace with leaving my whole life/family/world behind to get married and have it all be ignored because the only proof that matters is paper, and even worse still that I'm essentially having to guide my fiancé through the paperwork because he's not great with paperwork and procrastinates instead of helping me. What the hell does an affidavit from his aunt prove that my words don't? I'm going insane. I feel like I'm never going to get this poxy application submitted and if I do they're going to tell me to off back to Ireland because we forgot to dot an "i".