Hello all.

Just wondering if the embassy cares about how long you have been married. If G and I file right after we get married will this be a problem? What about as far as providing bona fide marriage evidence. The funny thing is that although we have lived together for three years we don't really know what we can show besides just lots of letters from people. Georgia is a crazy country and none of the banks here will let us open up a joint account plus we rent an apartment and nothing is in our name. They don't use credit cards here nor do we have anything else I can think of with both our names on it... I guess we live off the grid a bit....

Anywho, any suggestion about something we can show besides letters, or is that enough? We may be able to get some paper that shows that we are renting the apartment together...

Also, should we wait a while after getting married before filing or do they care how long you have been married?

Appreciate any answers.

Any other Georgia filers out there???? Maybe not too many of us...

File the day after the wedding if you want.

Letters (perhaps envelopes) addressed to each of you or both of you at the same address should be sufficient. You can only provide what you have. You can show other bona fides at the visa interview. The simple fact that you qualify to file DCF adds to the bona fides.

oh Thanks for the answer!

Hmm, well nothing ever sent to us at this address.. but I see what you are saying. Good to know we can file right away!

Here is my other question: Do you think that it will look terribly if we havent really dont any ceremonial kind of wedding? We were really just hoping to do the legal thing here and then do a bigger thing in the US. Should we do something here also? Should I not even mention t that we are planning to do a bigger ceremony in the US- obviously if they ask I would not want to lie about it.

If needed we can do something here and take lots of pictures..

No need for a ceremony. So what do you have that indicates you live together? How about having some family send you mail at your current address, now?

All we have right now is a very shady looking document that says we are renting our apartment that we got from the rental agency. We will translate and notarize that too I guess. I think the mail idea is good. We will get on that right away! Thanks for the idea

A rental contract is the best possible evidence. It only needs the bare facts, showing both names and one address. Why do you say it's "shady looking"?

Well its mostly hand written... and I don't know.. I just thought it looked shady, but G says we can get it translated and notarized... so that should work I guess Thanks again.

Do you think they will ask about our lack of ceremony? Can I say we are doing another wedding in the US?

Hi

My wife and i filed about 2 months after we got married. we sent off the i-130 for and about 3 months later we had to provide proof that it was real etc.

we were told we needed to collect afadavits from 3 different poeple who attented the wedding , saying on oath that it was true , for love etc. And this had to be done and witnessed by solicitors. we actually sent 4 back we also signed and sent in a letter .

we then sent them back and a 2 weeks later we got packet 3.

hope this helps you.

good luck

The issue is neither a wedding or a ceremony. The issue is whether your relationship is bonafide.

Was that DCF? Is it different if you are DCF? Does the letter need to attest to the wedding or to the validity of the marriage?






Thats what I figured, I just thought maybe they would think it was weird that we wont have all these pictures of us dressed up and celebrating. We may end up doing a small ceremony here as well as one in the US, but we were still planning to do the legal stuff and start the DCF filing before we plan a ceremony.

Hello,

we were in a very similar position to you. We lived together for about 3 years before we got married. We had the minimum ceremony that UK law would still consider a marriage. No rings, just me, my husband, 2 witnesses. We filed the I-130 2 days later.

We did get an RFE asking us for evidence of a bona fide marriage. The Affidavits that they asked us for were simply from people who had first hand knowledge of the bona fide nature of your marriage. They do not have to have been at the ceremony. I didn't send in the affidavits with the original I-130 because London says not to, but then they asked me for them.

Anyway, I would say that the lease on your flat would be fine. Even if you haven't had anything sent to you at your flat before, you should get something sent there now. Could you get a letter from the bank saying that you are not eligible for a joint account at this time? At least it would be addressed to you both, from a bank. Anything from an official source is good, even if it's to say that you can't have a bank account there.

Finally I posted a template for the Affidavit that I had my family write on the UK forum, here is the link:
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121614


best of luck
xxx Poit

Thank you! Those will be very useful. I guess we will use the apartment contract and submit a few letters (2-3) alongside the I-130. It is weird that the banks here will not issue joint accounts.. they told us that they don't exist and the only thing we could do is sign over power of attorney to one of us.

Oh and we have letters in the mail now from both within Georgia and from America, so hopefully something will make it here. We have never had mail sent to our apartment and you would be surprised how rarely people even use the postal system here. Anything I have had sent has been to an office building using DHL. Apartment addresses are weird here and apparently nobody we know has ever actually received mail to their home...

Very odd country
I do love it though.

Thanks again or didi madloba in Georgian