Please alleviate my anxiety!

[diego_d 0]

...or crush me with the awful truth!

Hello chaps, my packet three containing:

ds-230 part 1

ds-156

ds-157

ds-156k

and the checklist

are heading off to the US embassy tomorrow first thing. My wedding is early September. Should we be worried? Three months from receipt to interview sounds just about okay. Sounds just about okay :-(

Sorry for this horribly self-indulgent post!

[Ricky+Vanessa 41]

...or crush me with the awful truth!

Hello chaps, my packet three containing:

ds-230 part 1

ds-156

ds-157

ds-156k

and the checklist

are heading off to the US embassy tomorrow first thing. My wedding is early September. Should we be worried? Three months from receipt to interview sounds just about okay. Sounds just about okay :-(

Sorry for this horribly self-indulgent post!

Hello gianfranco,

Given my meltdown in the previous post I don't think I can gather my thoughts enough to give you a good answer! Just wanted to welcome you.

Maybe have a looked at the NOA2 to interview thread? I'm sure some other knowledgeable soul will come by

ETA link to other thread: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/250067-between-noa2-and-interview-2010/ Second post down has what ya need I believe...

Edited April 18, 2010 by Ricky+Vanessa

[diego_d 0]

Thank you :-) reading it now. Panicking just a little!

[Nich-Nick 3,353]

It's probably enough time. I would suggest that you fill in that checklist saying your wedding is July 31 and your travel date is July 15. That way you've put in a cushion of a month. In the past London has put off interviews of people not needing to go so quickly, while trying to accommodate somebody with an earlier wedding. They may be wise to the fact that everybody bumps up their date now.

[diego_d 0]

It's probably enough time. I would suggest that you fill in that checklist saying your wedding is July 31 and your travel date is July 15. That way you've put in a cushion of a month. In the past London has put off interviews of people not needing to go so quickly, while trying to accommodate somebody with an earlier wedding. They may be wise to the fact that everybody bumps up their date now.

Thanks for the advice. Are you saying that even if you put the actual date on the checklist, they may not allow you enough time to make it? Thus necessitating lying on the form and putting it a month earlier?

I have an invoice to prove the date of our wedding. Would you still recommend putting the date a bit earlier, or giving the truthful date and enclosing the invoice as proof? Along with a nice letter perhaps.

[inGODShands 0]

From personal experience, it is not a good idea to set a wedding date until you have the visa in hand, We ended up having to change our wedding date and we lost some of our deposits as a result. I would wait if I were you. Good luck with everything & I hope you get your visa soon! They are VERY unpredictable with dates!!!!

Edited April 18, 2010 by inGODShands

[Nich-Nick 3,353]

Thanks for the advice. Are you saying that even if you put the actual date on the checklist, they may not allow you enough time to make it? Thus necessitating lying on the form and putting it a month earlier?

I have an invoice to prove the date of our wedding. Would you still recommend putting the date a bit earlier, or giving the truthful date and enclosing the invoice as proof? Along with a nice letter perhaps.

London is very busy, especially with the summer tourist season approaching and all the other non-immigrant visas lining up to get processed. I don't think they intentionally try to make you miss your wedding but an earlier date might catch their eye over some other forms that arrived in the same mail who don't want to leave until October. Make your own choice on what you put on the form. I guess I'm a liar. When I bought a house last summer, I told the other party I had a deadline for closing or my mortgage lock (interest rate) would expire and I would thus back out. I padded it a week. Sure enough, they didn't start scrambling to try to finish up some construction details until the very last week, and as usual things happen and they were going to fall short by about a day. So at that point I agreed to sign a 1 week extension to the closing date. Thank God I didn't tell them the real deadline.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire = ME

As far as the wedding invoice, they don't care about invoices or proofs because they tell you not to make plans until the visa is approved. So in my opinion, I wouldn't enclose anything but the documents you mentioned. But the best thing you can do is make sure you get it right the first time. Some of the documents you have ready to mail are supposed to be in duplicate. Did you do that? Did you sign them?

And do you have everything needed for the interview like the long form birth certificate with your parent's names on it? Use the time while waiting for the interview to make sure you are prepared. If you don't have the right birth certificate or your affidavit of support is missing something, then you're sent away with instructions to courier the needed document to them. Unfortunately, that's a big hold up and they won't send out your visa the day after your documents arrive. In fact you will sit and fret for weeks wondering when they're going to get back to you. So get it right the first time and your visa will be likely printed the day after your interview and on it's way to you.

You might want to read the UK Wiki on VJ. It contains some good information. http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/K-1_and_IR-1/CR-1_-_UK_Specific_Information

Edited April 18, 2010 by Nich-Nick

[Nik+Heather 121]

You sound like you're about on the same timeline as we were just last year. We had the visa in plenty of time, and people could buy tickets to come over for the wedding after the visa got here and still get reasonable fares.

You can checkout our timeline if you like.

I agree with Nich, make sure you have everything in order. That's the best way to ensure that you get things in a timely manner. It's probably the most frustrating to be delayed because YOU messed up.