RachelandMax

Kiwi, from what we were able to find out with the NZ check it takes 10 days to 2 weeks but I wouldn't put money on that, embassies are black holes that suck documents in and spit them back out at random!

Our wedding is in 2 weeks and my fiance will be here tomorrow! That being said, we had planned a civil ceremony all along. We are having a huge reception afterward and all of our vendors were extremely understanding. I don't know if it's because I live in the small town south but every last vendor let us hold off payment until the visa was in hand, meaning we just paid them this week! YMMV, but check with your vendors when you start making plans, you might be pleasantly surprised. I think it also helped that we planned the wedding for a week day thereby not holding any weekend dates and also saving a huge chunk of change (thousands of dollars actually).

Thanks so much for the AOS thread recommendation and the SSN reminder. So confusing!

Congrats Kiwi! I bet the other person was MishandOdly, she had her interview yesterday as well

How did it go Kiwi? *fingers crossed* It'll go super quick from here on out.

Max is arriving on Friday!!! Wedding is all planned and paid for for the 14th. Family members are chipping and paying for the green card as Max's wedding gift so we are literally just cruising. Love it after all the stress of the last 8 months!

Max asked if they could ignore it to speed things up and they said sure and handed him his approval letter

He said the entire thing, from arrival to the building to finish took 20 minutes. He's sort of dumb founded at how easy it was.

Thanks to y'alls advice, Max was approved on the spot for his visa. He said the entire thing took 5 minutes. Thank you guys so much! Now I have to go clean the house for his arrival

We have tracking proof for both the 134s we're sending! Even if it is delayed that long (that must have been horrible waiting Barbara!) he'll still get here in time for the wedding. I will know for sure in 12 or so hours and I'll update.

Unit IV

Good luck!

That is wonderful information, I'm going to call him and relay the information you gave. Makes me feel much better. Thank you!!!

Thanks! That is basically what I figured would happen and my fiance is very mellow about it, 'no worries' and all. But I can't help but have a bit of a meltdown as I just want him here! I will just have to chew my fingernails off over the next 24 hours until we find out the verdict.

I'll try not to write a novel here but I wanted to know if anyone had any similar situation arise. My mom apparently did not send the original signature 134. She's a co-sponsor though actually not necessary (we just had her do one as a safety net). My fiance is currently in Sydney to interview tomorrow. He's fairly sure the document is the original signature and that the embassy messed up. Either way, to be safe, my mom resent another 134 to him. It did not arrive in time. She's sent another one to the embassy which should arrive later this week. My fiance is also going to forward on the 134 that looks likely to arrive at his house tomorrow (another city, too far away to get it).

We did contact the embassy about this and got the reply below:

He can still attend his interview tomorrow however we will not be able to issue his visa until all required documents are received. If we do not have this in time for the interview we will temporarily refuse his case after the interview until received.

My question is this: How bad is this? Of course, I'm freaking out because our wedding in 3 weeks and I'm envisioning AP and other horrible things. Since my mom's 134 was actually unnecessary, can he just ask them to ignore it or is that asking for more trouble? How big of a delay might this be?

Any advice appreciated!

Thanks.

You are GOOD Barbara!! Thank you for sending me some of your travel mojo! I think the 28th might be a bit early as his interview is the 22nd. I know both my mom and Max are having very bad vibes about booking anything in March just in case, but I'll check early April right now.

Side note, those airfares are from Sydney which is a 14 hour train ride or a $500 flight from where he is, I think that's the difference in price for us.

Thanks for all the answers! I think we've got the Australia Post thing down now, you guys are great!

I checked on Orbitz, Kayak, Qantas and Delta (live in ATL so Delta is usually cheaper) and it's all running around 2100-2500 one way which is, frankly, insane. That's for early April, late March time frame. I will check V Australia to LA and then see about a connector to Atlanta.

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster I can seriously say without visajourney.com Max and I would have gone so far off course so many times, you all are a life saver!

Anyway, Max has received his interview date for next Tuesday and we are confused by the payment at Australia Post thing. What do we say to specify what we are paying for? Are there forms we need to fill out, who are we paying? As usual, the embassy is obscure and non-informative.

Also, not to put anyone on the spot but how horribly bad would it be to book airfare now for say 10 days to two weeks after the interview? With the way gas prices are skyrocketing we are trying to avoid a $3000 plane fare (already over 2000!). So far our visa process has been incredibly smooth and we haven't had a single hiccup but I don't to jinx the last and most important step.

TIA,

Rachel and Max