Wedding and Reception!!!

[Mike n Huong 1]

Hello everyone,

Me and my Fiancee would like to choose a date for our wedding, so we book the reception hall. I would like for her to have this evidence for her interview. Where can we get married, just the Justice of the Peace? If so will they provide me with any documentation that she can present at the interview? Also as far as the reception and wedding, how do go about booking it if your not sure when she will get her visa?

Also when I visited her last time I purchased our wedding bands, so she can see them. I don't have the engagement receipt. So should I give her the receipts for the wedding bands to have for the interview? Also I bought her a necklace and earrings the same time I bought the wedding bands. She will be wearing them to the interview, is this good for evidence as well?

Any Help is greatly appreciated, Thanks

[TracyTN 237]

You can get married where ever and whenever you choose, so long as it is in the US when she arrives.

Personally, I would be very careful about putting down any sort of down payment on a location for the wedding. You may be out that $$ if the visa process takes longer than you anticipate (and it often does).

Best wishes!

[raymaga 25]

It is not necessary to have firm plans for your wedding at the interview.

I agree with the previous poster that you should not make definite plans yet, because there is a possibility of being put into AR or the visa being delayed for some reason.

You can go to the interview with the wedding ring receipt, and some rough plans and dates for your wedding, and that should definitely be enough.

Good luck at the interview.

[beaner0500 0]

Nigel and I set a date after he received packet 3 and was waiting for his interview date. But I required the folks at our reception site to allow us to transfer our deposit in full to another date if anything were to go wrong with the visa. I definitely wouldn't put down any big deposits if you lose them with a date change because that is always a possibility. We also set our date almost 10 months out from the date we submitted our 129-F since things were moving along well. I would say your best bet is to see how visas are moving along in your situation and then see if you can hold dates rather than risk losing any deposits.

[john_and_marlene 162]

Nigel and I set a date after he received packet 3 and was waiting for his interview date. But I required the folks at our reception site to allow us to transfer our deposit in full to another date if anything were to go wrong with the visa. I definitely wouldn't put down any big deposits if you lose them with a date change because that is always a possibility. We also set our date almost 10 months out from the date we submitted our 129-F since things were moving along well. I would say your best bet is to see how visas are moving along in your situation and then see if you can hold dates rather than risk losing any deposits.

That would put your wedding in October????

I noticed your interview is in April. Do you plan on delaying your entry into the U.S. or booking an earlier date now? Did you already send out invitations?

[motu 5]

Wedding plans are Ok but almost worthless. I don't recommend them! The best alternative is - wait for the visa, come her, have a quick (court) wedding and apply for AOS. They you can plan a big wedding with all the trimmings either here in US or the 'other' country - planning it at your pace and allowing everyone to participate. Good Luck

[damulag 26]

Just go to the justice of the peace and get married to satisfy the 90 day requirement and then plan a bigger wedding and reception.

Mike and Luvy

[YnaYeBa0808 0]

Definitely! Receipts of any gifts would be a good proof. We are in the same boat as you are, everything, all plans are pending until there is an actual visa date. We have booked pre-nuptial photoshoots with a photographer and he was good enough to provide us with a receipt. of course that goes without saying that there was a downpayment. but those are pre-nups. The best way I think what you can do also is ask for quotations from these places. They should be able to send out copies of it via email or snail mail. Its a quotation so that means that the intent to marry is still there, and it should be understandable that everything is pending because the dates are not definite yet. Several quotes from different places might help. just to show as proof...

other than that, planning it online via emails or chat conversations and printing them out may help as well...

just my two cents.

[moondancer627 0]

Adding my experience to the mix of answers ..... when you go in for the interview at least with us they just wanted the legal documents such as affidavit of support, police certificate, ect... I don't think they even cared if he had reciepts for rings and such although as every answer goes it depends on the agents at the window.

We planned two wedding dates and they both fell through because of delays.

When he came into the US we went to the JP first and then later planned the big wedding.

Good Luck...

Moondancer

[silverbutterfly228 0]

Wedding plans are Ok but almost worthless. I don't recommend them! The best alternative is - wait for the visa, come her, have a quick (court) wedding and apply for AOS. They you can plan a big wedding with all the trimmings either here in US or the 'other' country - planning it at your pace and allowing everyone to participate. Good Luck

This is exactly what I'm doing. small wedding than saving and planning for big one. If you are going to set a date I would put it 6-7 months after noa2, since u have 6 months of entry to get married u don't have to worry as much about it being before u have ur interview and ur visa will still be good than. I still like little wedding first big wedding later

[Ladylethal 12]

I plan on just getting married in the court. My family won´t be able to fly there this year so I wouldn´t want to throw a wedding party without them. Besides, we´ll be putting up our own place, furnishings, etc. So we won´t use the money we save for that just to have a party. Later down the road we can think of a big wedding, if we feel like it, although it´s not important to us.

And have yet to heard of them asking anything about the wedding plans. After the visa you have up to 6 months to enter the US and another 90 days after you get there to get married, so it´s 9 months total, plenty of time to plan a wedding after you get the visa, no?

[jkb919 0]

My fiance will know his interview date next week and we know it will be sometime in May, so when we find out the interview date I am going to set our wedding date, I have been checking out local hotels to have the wedding and reception and the first question I asked is in case something delays his visa can we move the date, most places have said no problem and as long as the date I want is avaliable I can change it with no charge. So next week when we find out his interview date I am going to take a risk and put a deposit down on a venue to hold the wedding. We had talked about doing the courthouse thing but my mom is not having it she said we have to have a wedding...heck mom and dad are paying for it so we might as well.

But if you do find a place to have it just ask them if you can change the date if things dont work out.

[iceyspots 0]

Wedding plans are Ok but almost worthless. I don't recommend them! The best alternative is - wait for the visa, come her, have a quick (court) wedding and apply for AOS. They you can plan a big wedding with all the trimmings either here in US or the 'other' country - planning it at your pace and allowing everyone to participate. Good Luck

That's exactly what I was going to do! We planned on getting the marriage on paper the 1st or 2nd day he gets here, then send off the AOS... then start planning the shindig...

[beaner0500 0]

john_and_marlene - Our wedding date is September 30. Nigel's interview is April 18 but he has to give 4 weeks notice at work and will probably do so at the end of April. He'll probably end up coming in mid-June which puts us just over 90 days until the wedding. We'll just do a quickie courthouse thing to make him legal but then we have a religious ceremony and reception planned for September. I would have preferred to get married only once but our situation isn't "normal" so I'm rolling with the punches. We could have waited until he got his visa to start planning but there's no realistic way to plan what we think is a decent fall wedding in the Washington, DC area with only 4-6 months notice. This way we got the date and location we wanted and are safe if anything changes because of the clause we put in the contracts regarding the deposit. And I sleep a lot better at night knowing I don't have to throw things together at the last minute!

[Not Available 0]

We chose a date once we got our interview date. That gave us 2\3 months to plan. Our was pretty small though.