My fiance (from the UK) and I (the USC) are keen to plan a wedding for October 19 here in New Mexico. Our NOA1 was March 5, so I know this is cutting a bit close. I also know that many people here recommend not planning the wedding until the visa is in hand. I really want to not have to wait until later next year when the weather is nice again to have a wedding, and we already have people keen to come and help out. Also, I have no better way to fill my time while waiting, so wedding planning seems like a good filler. On the other hand, I am torn because I am extremely paranoid something will go wrong and we'll have to call the wedding off.

My question is, if we don't have the K1 by then, can my fiance come on a tourist visa, we have the ceremony, but don't make it legal? This is worst case scenario.

Also, can you expedite when they schedule the interview or when you get your visa afterword if you show you already have a wedding date booked?

There is nothing you can do to expedite the process unless your US fiance is in the military and about to be deployed.

With the CSC, it takes 3 months to process the petition, 2-4 weeks to transfer the case to the embassy, and then for the UK, about 3 months until you can get an interview. You might get lucky on the October 19th date if nothing delays your case.

Your fiance can visit on a tourist visa, or VWP, as long as your fiance can prove non-immigration intent. Yes you can hold a non-legal ceremony, but you have to be careful with immigration officials. Showing your rings or referring to each other as husband and wife could cause problems, even if the ceremony is not legal.

just hold off on any big formal wedding plans until later, when you know he's been approved for the visa. Anything could happen, and then you lose your money on deposits and whatnot.

Once he gets his K1, then arrives, you get married quickly at the courthouse for the legality's sake, then plan the big to-do to include friends and family sometime later.

Of course, just my opinion.

Lot of folks have lost their money by planning big wedding and their partner was not able to make it. With the USCIS you never know, I would hold on to the Big wedding plan until you have VISA ON HAND. Another factor Once your partner is already on file with a K1 it might get a little bit difficult to come out here because some folks have been returned in the past due to K1 pending status

The worst case scanario is that CBP doesn't let him in and accuses him of making a misrepresentation in the course of entering the US and places a lifetime ban on his entering the US which would require a waiver of inadmissiblity to get the visa issued...

They would cause you to lose a lot more time and a pretty significant amount of money not only in the blown wedding ceremony with a groom but in the legal fees associated with the waiver...

The better route would be for you to plan the big wedding a suifficient amount of time in advance so that you know the visa would be issued by then and have a legal marriage before that time...

Believe me.. nobody needs to know about your first marriage... for most people (other than the couple themselves and maybe a few other people), the big wedding is all they will know about and remember...

THat's what we did (Legal Wedding in January, big wedding in October) and everyone (outside of immediate family) pretty much recognized the October wedding as our wedding date... We still get lots of anniversary cards on the October date...

Don't plan and pay for a wedding before your fiance has the visa in his hot il hands. Believe me, those customs guys are ruthless. You can read about what happened to me byclicking on my name in my profile. and scroll down to My Story.

Yeah, the one thing I would worry about is denial at POE, the one reason I didn't file in January, but waited until my fiance was here (he had already planned to visit in February). I see now that this really isn't an option. I am still indecisive about what to do, so I am going to talk to the coordinator at the venue to see how flexible they would be if I needed to change the date.

Thanks everyone who responded. I know it would be easier in some ways to wait until next year, but that makes it difficult for us in a lot of other ways, so I am going to talk to some of the vendors about our situation and see what can be done first.