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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on October 17, 2023: |
wav_m
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
First, a bit of logistical advice: if you're staying in an outer part of London and your appointment is early, do not count on the availability of Ubers or taxis or whatever else to take you directly there. I learned this the hard way, though fortunately I had left enough time to get to the embassy comfortably on public transit instead.
My appointment was for 9.30. I arrived at about 8.20, and dropped off my bag at District cafe for £10 (they said that most coffee places in the area offer bag storage for a fee). After a quick coffee and breakfast, I went over to the South Pavilion entrance for roughly 8.45. The queue on the left (for US citizen services) is the one you need to join. Despite reading every review advising me to join that queue, I wavered in the heat of the moment and joined the one for visa services. Thankfully it was short, and they gave me directions to enter anyway – I didn't have to queue again. They checked my passport and my DS-160 confirmation page, and wrote something down on the latter before pointing me to the door.
The security guard on the door asked me to open an app on my phone before he would let me in. Then I passed through a sort of lightweight version of airport security – everything went into little trays, and I was asked to take a sip from my water bottle after it went through the scanner. No issues, and I proceeded to the front desk.
The front desk staff checked my passport and DS-160 confirmation page, then gave me a ticket with a number on it. They directed me to the lifts, telling me to go to the first floor, turn left and then left again, and wait. They explicitly told me to skip the queue.
Within about five minutes I was called to a window. The officer (this one was British) asked for: my passport, my birth certificate, my deed poll reflecting my change of name, my police certificates from the UK and Canada, my fiancé's I-134 form with evidence of his ability to support me (we provided his most recent tax return), and proof of his divorce. To accompany the lattermost, we also provided proof of his change of name and gender, as his divorce decree used his prior name and gender and we wanted to ensure there was no confusion. The officer said that was smart.
Then he took my fingerprints and told me to wait to be called again. After roughly half an hour, I was called up to a different window to speak to an American. She asked me to confirm my name and date of birth, then raise my right hand and state that all my statements were true to the best of my knowledge. She also took my left hand's fingerprints again – I think to verify my identity, though I'm not sure.
The questions she asked were as follows:
- What's your fiancé's name and where does he live?
- When did you meet your fiancé?
- When did you first meet your fiancé in person?
- When was the last time you saw your fiancé?
- Did he propose to you or vice versa?
She gave back the original documents that I'd handed over at the previous window. She looked through a big folder of all my visa paperwork, and I saw the papers from my medical exam in the folder she was browsing. When she looked at those, she asked to check my birth certificate again – I am pretty sure that's because, one one of the forms involved in the medical exam, someone mistyped my date of birth. We corrected it at the medical, but presumably evidence of the correction was visible, and she wanted to verify.
At that point she said "Everything looks good. Your visa is approved." I was told to expect that it would be processed in 1-2 weeks. She also told me to call my fiancé and wake him up! Needless to say, I didn't do that (he's in California and had only gone to bed two hours previously), but I did text him at great length after picking up my bag and procuring a direly-needed second coffee.
As long as you are prepared, calm, and honest, the London embassy is largely unstressful. Everyone I met was kind to me, and I was out about an hour after I went in – well before I'd expected to be out, based on my appointment time. CEAC is still showing my visa as "Ready," as of 11pm on the day of the interview, but I'm hopeful that it will move to "Approved" quickly.
I hope this info helps someone out there feel a little more at ease about this step in the process!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #32595