Planning a wedding in 3 months?

[Amanda2020 1]

I was just thinking today about the kind of wedding your really allowed to have on a K-1 Visa? 3 months is quite short to put a wedding together. I've heard that civil would be the fastest way to get a licence but, some dont feel that as a real thing. Marriage and weddings are big in my family and backround as I am Italian, I just cant go with a civil, its like getting married in a court or something. But can you really put a big wedding together or even a proper wedding in 3 months? I would really appriciate some advice.

[HappyDancer 7]

I would recommend www.projectwedding.com

This site has helped me do my wedding DIY. It's interactive and the crowd is awesome. They have a forum for brides. I am planning to have the wedding in June.

[faryan 4]

Well, you can start planning from now! Even before u get into US with the K1 visa. The ladies on Wedding thread are organising their wedding (albeit having to have the dates pretty flexi until they get the visa), but they have been looking for venue, cakes, wedding invites, gowns, etc etc etc from wherever they are. And inform those you intend to have at the wedding that like it or not they too will have to be flexi and expect to plan their travel on short notice (like, 2 months or so heads up only for eg.). Plan ahead, and you indeed can get the kind of wedding you want, give and take a few..

I did not go thru the K1 visa, but my own wedding was arranged just 3 months ahead, and we had a huge very traditional one. However, mine is not a western one, so it varies. I will post the link to that wedding thread in my next post.

[faryan 4]

Here is the link:

Wedding thread

Perhaps you can post there and discuss with the other ladies also undergoing the K1 process like you Good luck, and hope you have the wedding that you dream of....

[Amanda2020 1]

Thanks I've also thought of maybe doing the relegious ceremony here without the paperwork and than signing it in the states when i get there

[Slightly Bonkers 0]

One option is to have a quickie civil wedding to get things moving and then actually plan your wedding in your own time.

Another option is to take the whole 9 months allowed on the K1, 6 months in your own country, 3 months in the US. This never actually seems like a decent option for me though because it meant 6 extra months away from each other and i didnt want a wedding that much.

What we did was, as soon as we sent in our application we found a place and talked to them about dates about 9,10 months away but didn't book anything. I bought a dress and did all the achievable stuff. As soon as our petition left NVC, we set a date 6 months down the line.

We did take a risk by doing this and we know it. But I knew that I had to get a Japanese police cert which was an extra 8 weeks waiting and this was our only real sticking point. The irish embassy doesn't have long waits for interviews, and we knew that Ireland is a generally low fraud post, and that our relationship was real, so by and large, it was a very calculated risk.

We took whatever dates were left at the venue, mid-week weddings are less of a pain when half the guests are out-of-towners but we did get a Friday. And then had about 6 months to plan, 1 month of which was with me in the states. You can put together a beautiful wedding in that time, or even in less if necessary. The most important thing for me was to give people enough notice to book flights.

[faryan 4]

Thanks I've also thought of maybe doing the relegious ceremony here without the paperwork and than signing it in the states when i get there

Ahhh, well that might work too.. Altho Im not sure re the laws in your country All the best!

[Sylvia_n_Joseph 3]

In a way you could have 9 months to plan. The K1 is good for 6 months then expires 3 months after you enter. So if you didn't come for 6 months you would get 90 days from then. But personally I wouldn't wait

[minnew 4]

I was just thinking today about the kind of wedding your really allowed to have on a K-1 Visa? 3 months is quite short to put a wedding together. I've heard that civil would be the fastest way to get a licence but, some dont feel that as a real thing. Marriage and weddings are big in my family and backround as I am Italian, I just cant go with a civil, its like getting married in a court or something. But can you really put a big wedding together or even a proper wedding in 3 months? I would really appriciate some advice.

I am in the same boat hun. My fiance and I did talk about doing a civil ceremony but his family was not on board with that, the words "not allowed" were spoken. I am not looking forward to planning a wedding 15 hours away and in such short notice, but I am going to try to use as much as the 6 months allowed before activating the visa and plus the 90 days...but we don't want to wait too long before marrying once in the country because that's when time starts ticking for EI and if you plan things right you may not have much of a gap in EI payments before getting your EAD. (cmon over to the Canada forum if you want to know more about EI) Our guest list will be max of 80-100....how many will show...probably about 40-50, but one never knows!

[Sinergy 3]

3 months for your wedding? when did you file for the K1? bc the K1 process will take between 90-120 days....and at this time the wait time is about 6-8 months wait. You have plenty of time to plan for a wedding. Also...ive had a civil (first marriage) and a church wedding (this one)... and the marriage license didnt take any longer for the church wedding than it did for the civil one. So i wouldnt worry much about that.

[Wis-Can 0]

It is hard to plan a wedding when you don't know a date. We decided that as much as a bigger wedding would be nice, the most important thing was that we were together so we're doing the Vegas thing! The cost of the whole immigration process kinda put a damper on things as well. Especially with the purchase of a new house. If you do have your heart set on a full wedding I would take advantage of the six months you have to use your visa, and then you have the 90 days to get married so that will give you a half decent amount of time to plan your dream wedding. Good luck with everything. I hope you have the wedding of your dreams!

[panterchen 1]

I think planning a wedding in 3 months is definitely feasible. The only thing we booked in advance was the venue (and here you can ask about possible rescheduling and such) and the rest just started end december. However, we are using a wedding planner to help us.

[Gary and Alla 3,696]

I was just thinking today about the kind of wedding your really allowed to have on a K-1 Visa? 3 months is quite short to put a wedding together. I've heard that civil would be the fastest way to get a licence but, some dont feel that as a real thing. Marriage and weddings are big in my family and backround as I am Italian, I just cant go with a civil, its like getting married in a court or something. But can you really put a big wedding together or even a proper wedding in 3 months? I would really appriciate some advice.

1. A civil wedding IS the real thing. It is determined as a matter of law, not personal opinion or religious beliefs.

2. You have much more than three months to plan the wedding. You can start planning when you agree to get married and for all the time the visa is processing.

3. You MUST get married within 90 days, whether you think it is enough time or not. A civil marriage is sufficient to meet the requirements and you can have a bigger wedding later YOU can choose which wedding YOU consider "real". The USCIS will consider the civil marriage "real".

4. You can also run down to your local Parish on a Tuesday afternoon and get married in the Priest's office if you feel this is better than the JP. Then, again, plan a big wedding for a Saturday afternoon 23 months in the future.

Either way, you MUST conduct a leagl marriage ceremony within 90 days of your fiancess arrival if you go the K-1 visa route.

[baron555 934]

Go to the county clerk's office and apply and pay for the marriage license. In most places you have to wait one day. Then the next day go to the county judge's chambers (on the times they list when they will be performing marriage services) and get legally married by the judge. No need for witnesses or anyone else. Now you will be legally married and can then start the AOS process.

Then when you have the time, have a big lavish church ceremony or whatever you wish. Being legally married and married by the church or whatever are two different things.

Phil

[Philosykos 0]

Are we the only ones who were bold enough to pick a date and start planning a mid-October wedding when we filed in mid-January...? Even if we do wait six months for the petition, it should still work out. Of course it could happen that it takes longer, but being from a very low-fraud country and having a totally established, legitimate relationship, I think it should be pretty safe... And if it goes even faster and I can come over more than three months ahead of the October date, we'll do a quick civil ceremony, and then the party in conjunction with the church wedding.