OK, heres the deal.

I am an US citizen. My fiance is a UK citizen. We are getting married in August in London, and our plan is that she will come back to US with me after we get married.

Should we start a fiance visa (K1 i think) now or should we do the K3 once we get married. Which will be the quickest way? Usually, british citizens arent required to have a visa to visit the US for 3 months or something, so she will be able to come back with me while its processing and return to UK for the interview right?

Please inform me of what the best way would be and wheather she will be able to come here under the tourist thing while this is giong on(becuase she is UK citizen)

thanks a bunch in advance

sorry about double post, my browser is weird

If you are set on getting married in London then the Fiancee Visa is irrelevant.

She can certainly visit the US whilst the K3 is being processed, she should take evidence of her non immigrant intent, job to return to , property etc just in case she is asked.

VWP is good for 90 days, K3 takes a lot longer.

Also, if she visits you when you are married, take off her wedding ring. Travel separately. Don't mention EVER words like boyfriend, husband, married, marriage ... purpose of visit = shopping, or visiting friends or conference or whatever else. The border people (as we unfortunately discovered) have a tendency to dislike people who are married but don't have a green card yet ...
Also, have proof that you live, work, and intend to return to UK. And get a return ticket.

From what I understand the K3 -marriage visa- takes a bit longer than the K1 -fiancee visa. However, you'd have to do some research and look at timelines to back that up.

Anyway, like someone else mentioned, if you are getting married in London then the K1 is totally irrelevant to you anyway. HOWEVER, if you wanted you could just have a ceremony in London and not actually get married. Like you could do the ceremony in the same way, but just make sure it is not legally binding -like do not apply for a marriage license. If you did this then you could apply for the K1. There is no set time on how long a K1 visa takes. It very greatly depends on what service centre you are using in the US. If you are going through Vermont then you can get it in as little as 3-4 months (OR LONGER) but if you are applying through California, Texas, Nebraska it will take about 5-6 months (OR LONGER). We had to apply through Texas-California and you can see our timeline below in my signature.

I'd suggest if you really want her to be living with you in the US as soon as possible, that you file for the K1 RIGHT NOW. By the time of your NON LEGALLY BINDING wedding ceremony in August you'll be pretty close to finishing with the process. You as a USC can stay in the UK on a tourist visa for 6 months, so you could even wait in the UK for her to finish up the process and have her interview. Then once she has her interview (which if you applied at the end of this month would probably be sometime in September-October) she could come to the US for good. She could move to the US and then you two could get married for real!

Otherwise you have to wait for the wedding in London -in August- and THEN start applying for a K3, which takes at least the same amount of time if not longer then the K1.

Hope that made sense and good luck!
Marina

While a person doesn't have to introduce the subject of family members in the US, lying about them, evading a direct question or misdirecting the CBP officer is NOT a good idea, and is not consistant with the information encouraged at visajourney.

Evidence of your ties outside the US is better advice.