Greetings from a not-jaded-yet Australian moving to the USA

[SharksBelow 99]

Hi everyone

I'm a wordy type so I'll try to keep this short.

I travelled around the USA in February 2013 and stayed with / visited a bunch of friends with whom I share a hobby / lifestyle (weightlifting). Completely to my surprise, I fell in love with one of them and we've been together ever since.

We visited each other a bunch of times last year. I went to Guam three times where he was working a 12 month contract at the Superior Court as a judge's clerk, and he visited Australia three times as well. On New Years Eve on Guam, on a beautiful beach, he asked me to marry him and I said yes

In March, he moved here to Queensland, Australia on a working holiday visa for 12 months. We decided due to the short amount of time that he is here, that we would get started on the visa process ASAP by getting married formally (legally) sooner rather than later, at the end of June. Our celebration with our friends and family will be in October, in Tasmania. Aren't we lucky?!

We're currently living with my father, which is great, because I get to spend my last bit of time in Australia with him and he is bonding amazingly with my future husband. They are proper bros! It's wonderful.

Obviously we are looking down the barrel of a long and arduous process with my visa, and Ray will definitely have to go home to the USA before it is granted. We have come to terms with this, and wish to do all we can to ensure this is only a brief period of being apart. That's why I've joined up here! What an incredible amount of knowledge and advice there is on this amazing forum.

I am starting to collate all our "proof of relationship" stuff at the moment. Obviously, we can't apply for our visa until we have our marriage certificate, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. I'm trying to figure out what the best way is to display it all, and how to label it appropriately. I'd love some help with this, I will have a look for appropriate threads.

I think that's it for now. I've blabbered on for long enough!

xoxo

[JE57 239]

Delay the wedding and apply for a finance visa and fly to the USA together at the end of 12 months? Just a thought.

[cezzie8210 0]

I'm in my interview stage for next week....I'm using clear books files in 3 sets....one for my spouse proof of income documents, SSN certificate of naturalization income tax etc etc...another for my personal, like marriage certificate, birth certificate, police clearance, plus email correspondence from NVC (once you are on that stage ) and last one for proof of relationships ( email, yahoo and skype conversations, facebook posts, SMS conversations etc) plus i made a separate scrap book for our photos with dates and captions organized per dates... you can put post it flag lets to mark per page so that when you are asked for a certain documents, you don rumble and open all that the same time! Hope it helps!!!!

[SharksBelow 99]

That does help! Thanks!

Delay the wedding and apply for a finance visa and fly to the USA together at the end of 12 months? Just a thought.

We definitely thought about it. But there's a couple of reasons why we can't.

1. There's no guarantee that we will get a fiancé visa any quicker than a CR1. It may take just as long and we have delayed our wedding for nothing.

2. The October celebration is all booked and paid for. Not just by us, but by friends and family who have sunk a few hundred dollars each into flights to get there. It wouldn't be fair to cancel it. And when would we delay it to? No way to know what the timing of this process will bring.

But we did think about it!

[Rose&Jorge 8]

Does he have to leave Australia even after you's have married ?. I know in Ireland your husband can stay in the country with you once you can proof the marriage was real.

So is it not possible once you are married for him to stay in oz with you and then you apply for the spouse visa and once you get it you can both go to the us ??.

[lilsadie 50]

Congrats fellow Aussie!!! The marriage visa def takes longer than the K1. My Fiancé and I met while she was studying here in and fell in love, we applied for the defacto Visa and she has now been living here with me for almost 5 years. We applied for my K1 on the 28/4, got approved 12/5 and will be having the interview on 15/7 so all up about 2.5 months to get my K1. Were pretty lucky! Good luck with the process and best wishes on your up coming wedding! Not long to go!!

[SharksBelow 99]

Congrats fellow Aussie!!! The marriage visa def takes longer than the K1. My Fiancé and I met while she was studying here in and fell in love, we applied for the defacto Visa and she has now been living here with me for almost 5 years. We applied for my K1 on the 28/4, got approved 12/5 and will be having the interview on 15/7 so all up about 2.5 months to get my K1. Were pretty lucky! Good luck with the process and best wishes on your up coming wedding! Not long to go!!

Are you living in Australia or the USA? Wow that is really fast isn't it! Still not sure how that would help us though; would we not then have to go to the States and get married there within a certain amount of time? Isn't the K1 a fiance visa? I live in Rockhampton and would have to go to the consulate in Sydney for an interview. I'm so confused now!

[lilsadie 50]

Are you living in Australia or the USA? Wow that is really fast isn't it! Still not sure how that would help us though; would we not then have to go to the States and get married there within a certain amount of time? Isn't the K1 a fiance visa? I live in Rockhampton and would have to go to the consulate in Sydney for an interview. I'm so confused now!

Were living in Aus. You have to go to Sydney for the interview, we fly in next month. Its a big decision. We have an attorney in the states who is handling our case and he basically broke it down for us. 5 months (give or take) for the k1 or around 1/1.5 years for the marriage visa.

So basically once we get the visa in July we can leave any where up to 6 months. Were leaving in September and then once we arrive we have 90 days to get married. Were just doing a court house wedding and then we will have a big bash next year!! Can your partner stay with you in Aus after their Visa finishes? You can apply for defacto. Its expensive but it only took us 3 weeks to get approved and for my love to get Perm residency.

[SharksBelow 99]

It's just really unfortunate because we have made plans to get married here. So we can't get a K1 because we'll be married soon. Unless the USA decides it doesn't recognise marriages outside of Australia, which seems pretty unlikely. So even if we started K1 right now, it's less than 5 months til we get married. Sigh. I guess we've gone about this the wrong way huh?

As for him staying here I actually don't know. Something to ask immigration I guess.

[SharksBelow 99]

Calling immigration today. Wow a year to a year and a half for the whole process, huh? Sigh.. lucky I love him.

[SharksBelow 99]

Looks like there's no way we can extend his visa unless his employer sponsors him which won't happen, he's just doing admin/clerical work, his American law degree isn't transferable here without a lot of money and study!

I guess all we can hope for is a timely processing for the CR1

[NikLR 13,220]

CR1 can be timely. I've seen them as fast as 4 months total, but the average is about a year from filing to interview. You get a green card upon entry, you can work right away, or travel outside the USA if you want to visit Canada etc. There are some very good advantages to the CR1.

To me, when I was engaged, that was pretty much the same as being married. IMHO an engagement is time to plan a wedding, not see if the relationship is going anywhere.

I hope you have a wonderful wedding!!

[Jawaree 717]

Why not DCF....he does have proof of residence in the USA home address,

active bank account and current License?...there's no guarantee K1 will be

much shorter based on current movement, I say go ahead and get married

[NikLR 13,220]

No DCF in Oz.

[SharksBelow 99]

Why not DCF....he does have proof of residence in the USA home address,

active bank account and current License?...there's no guarantee K1 will be

much shorter based on current movement, I say go ahead and get married

No DCF in Australia! How ridiculous is that! Apparently you used to be able to, but no more.

CR1 can be timely. I've seen them as fast as 4 months total, but the average is about a year from filing to interview. You get a green card upon entry, you can work right away, or travel outside the USA if you want to visit Canada etc. There are some very good advantages to the CR1.

To me, when I was engaged, that was pretty much the same as being married. IMHO an engagement is time to plan a wedding, not see if the relationship is going anywhere.

I hope you have a wonderful wedding!!

Thanks so much! Honestly, he and I are such a perfect fit, I had not a single twinge about getting married "early" in our engagement because I'm 100% sure that we are going to continue to be the excellent married couple that we are unmarried. I completely agree with you, the engagement is about planning the wedding! Even though we are getting the legal paperwork stuff out of the way nice and early, we feel that the "real" wedding is about the love and support of our amazing family and friends so though there'll be no documents signed on the day of the wedding in October, that's when we feel our journey will really begin.

That is reassuring that some people have had theirs done faster. I guess it's just a matter of making sure every i is dotted, and every t crossed.