Can I get away with planning a real wedding now?

[LizC 0]

Hey all

I received my NOA1 on Nov 16th and am now merrily in the process of waiting. My fiance and I are planning our wedding for August 16th 2008. Depending on how the dates and approval work out, we may get legally married as soon as he comes into the country on the fiance visa and then the August wedding will be to seal the deal with friends and family (and so I can have just a little bit of the princess wedding ... )

So - I am wondering....

1. Are we completely foolish for planning a wedding in August and reserving the location/vendors/etc? Is the 8-9 month window enough? We have been together for 2 years and have spent enough time in person together (12+ months) that we have tons of evidence of our relationship and he has been here numerous times. (Hopefully!!) there shouldn't be reason for RFEs.

2. Has anyone done the legal wedding immediately upon entering and then had the traditional wedding later on? Do you have any advice/experience with this?

Thanks for your help. I don't know where I'd be without you guys. Sorry for the information overload.

Best

Liz

[mox 298]

If everything goes right, you're probably safe. But therein lies the rub. Nobody can tell you with any degree of certainty that you and your fiance will be re-united in time to make that wedding date. And any pleas to USCIS or the consulate to accommodate your plans will fall on deaf ears.

So the short answer: if all goes well, 8-9 months is probably ok. But that's a big "if."

A lot of people have just waited until their fiance got here, did a courthouse wedding within 90 days, and then did the "big" wedding later on.

Best of luck to you both!

[Jesse and Hema 2]

1. Not completely foolish... Slightly foolish, perhaps .. People have gotten RFE'ed for the most inane reasons, and some for reasons out of their control (ie - someone else's error). Also, at any step in the process, unexpected delays might happen for seemingly no reason. For example, I've been waiting over a month for my petition to get shipped from the California Service Center to the NVC in New Hampshire. Historically, this has only taken a few days. This is possibly interfering with our plans a bit, pushing the total time to visa back a month or more. I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but my advice is to keep the dates as tentative and flexible as posisble.

2. I have no experience with this, but it's a likely scenario. The sooner the marriage happens, the better, logistically, for reasons of health insurance, AP, and AoS.

Best of luck to you!

[SonoranSongbird 3]

I just booked a place for an October 2008 wedding. We are having a fairly small, simple wedding, and I made sure that the events manager understood that we were dealing with immigration and might need to push the date back. I would say if you want to book a wedding, just make sure you will be able to change it if need be.

The other possibility is waiting until you have your interview date. This should be about one month prior to interview. Then you have six months to activate the visa and another three in which to get married. I know people who have planned weddings in four or five months without immigration concerns to deal with. It can be done.

[Ta Ta 1]

I have given up planning anything for a wedding. Every time we planned anything the embassy threw a monkey wrench in it..........

I dare not plan........still stuck in limbo !

They sure know how to pee on my parade and burst my bubble and take all joy out of it.

[~Nini~ 2]

Bee and I opted to do the legal courthouse wedding first and plan for the big ceremonial wedding afterwards. We wanted to get the ball rolling on stuff for our AOS paperwork so that I could get a job faster, and we didn't want the hassle of planning a huge wedding only to have a wrench thrown into the plans - being caught up in name checks or being denied at the interview was a small possibility, but it was there and it worried us enough that we didn't want to risk whatever plans we had going awry.

Okay, and we also didn't have the money for it at the time, but that's something totally different.

Edited November 30, 2007 by Nini & Bee

[SHELLYandFCO 0]

There were so many delays throughout our process (inclusive of having to file I-601 which added another 8 months to the process) that we opted to marry at the courthouse one week after entry. Fast, easy, inexpensive. I've pretty much paid for a wedding throughout this whole immigration process and have opted to save up for a nice honeymoon.

[Queen Jenn 0]

Ok, here's my two cents.

I'm PLANNING all the things for the wedding, but leaving the date open. I'm going to MEET with caterers, photographers, florists, etc. and find out what I want, but not BOOK A DATE. I'm planning on having a first choice, second choice and third choice. That way, when he actually has the visa, we can choose a date and all I have to do is make a few phone calls to book the vendors I want. If my first choice isn't available, we go with the 2nd or 3rd choice. I figure this will let me have the wedding I want, but we can be flexible with any delays that may come our way.

But I AM buying the dress, when I find what I want.

[ddkm 0]

We booked our wedding roughly 12 months from when we sent in the I-129f. The delays that have come in since June have put a dampener on it, but we will still be together Jan/Feb 08 and have a courthouse ceremony before the wedding June 7th 2008

[Krikit 1,166]

Hi Liz. You'll find lots of stories here where people have lost thousands of dollars because they booked the wedding before receiving the visa. Life has a way of interfering with plans like that. I would not advise planning a full wedding with reception until the visa is in hand. We were married in a civil ceremony the week after I arrived in the US, then had our wedding a few months later. There's enough stress in this process without adding to the burden. I wish you all the best with whatever you decide.

[Caladan 19]

Don't plan anything with a deposit that you can't afford to lose. Other people's experience may vary, but I found that most places wanted some kind of deposit to hold the date, so in practice, that meant a lot that we couldn't book until the visa was in hand. You can do some stuff, like your gown, your bridesmaids' gowns, or meeting with vendors and officiants. But I think it would only add to the stress of the process if in addition to everything else, you had thousands of dollars on the line.

That said, we had a fun fluffy white wedding, which we planned in one week in March for July.

[Eli the Barrowboy 16]

We booked 12 months in advance of applying for a wedding in Oregon ... yeah I know it's probably dumb but we figured since a lot of people can't fly on short notice from Ireland and we won't be able to book the place we want on short notice either we'd take the chance.

We paid a not too big deposit that we get back if we let them know we are shifting dates a month beforehand - also, people can book time off work now and then book plane tickets etc after we get the OK ... sorry, IF we get the OK.

If you have no criminal convictions, no visa overstays and enough money for your affidavit of support then even with a RFE most people are OK on 12 months.

I realise now I've typed this I've probably just put a jinx on our application which will probably be granted the day after we were supposed to get married but ....

So that's my two cents. Would I advise other people to do the same as us? Probably not ... just in case.

[bora bora 1]

I've read so many complaints from people who booked weddings and then had something happen during the process that made them miss the date (or think they will miss it).

I'd suggest not setting any plans unless they were WAY in the future. Some people go to the courthouse and then have the wedding later.

We planned ours (well my friends did!!!) in less than 6 weeks. But it was relatively small - intimate and amazing!

[LizC 0]

So I kind of freaked out from your replies but I still really want to play a wedding. It isn't just about the fluffyness - it's also about Argentineans booking flights, sorting out visas, and saving money until then.

Ahhhh!!! So - we set it back until September 20th which gives us 10 months. I'll give someone a cookie if they tell me this is fine and there shouldn't be a problem (unless something crazy weird happens).

It will be the flavor of your choice.

[mox 298]

So I kind of freaked out from your replies but I still really want to play a wedding. It isn't just about the fluffyness - it's also about Argentineans booking flights, sorting out visas, and saving money until then.

Ahhhh!!! So - we set it back until September 20th which gives us 10 months. I'll give someone a cookie if they tell me this is fine and there shouldn't be a problem (unless something crazy weird happens).

It will be the flavor of your choice.

It will be fine and there shouldn't be a problem (unless something crazy weird happens.) Oatmeal raisin.

In all seriousness, if you do this, keep in mind that you are playing roulette. Sounds like a lot of people are going to be spending a lot of money on the hopes that 10 months from now there will be a wedding. Anyone who tells you it's a certainty that she's going to be over here in 10 months is just trying to get oatmeal raisin cookies out of you. There's a good chance that your plans will work out, but there are a lot of people who thought they'd have no problems with their filing either.

Do what you think you should do, but keep in mind there will be a lot of unhappy people if it takes her 10 months and 1 week to finally get over here. As someone else has pointed out, she has 6 months to use the Visa, and another 3 months to get married. That buys you almost 9 full months to plan a wedding *after* you have the Visa in hand.

Best of luck to you!