mitch612

Hi Everybody,
My wife came to the US on a k1 visa, i94 valid until November 13th.
We applied for SSN pretty quickly and received the card under her maiden name. We were married on September 24th and received certified marriage certificate that includes her new married name.
Today she went in to the social security office to request name change. She brought i94, passport w/ k1 visa, social security card (maiden name), and the certified marriage certificate (original).
After waiting in line for a few hours, the employee denied her the name change, stating that she needs to wait for the green card. I was not there (she went with a family member).
Is this true? Or was this employee misinformed?
Related, should I return to try again with her? Is it worth trying again? I'd love to get her a state ID, open a bank account for her, let her start studying for the drivers exam. But I don't know how that all works if the card is under her maiden name.
I appreciate your advice..

I second this. I included a statement just like what is described as a second paragraph in my letter of intent (i.e. we met on OKC, discussed marriage in october, I bought ring in november, met in costa rica in january, engaged on.., etc).
I also agree on including some hard receipts from your activities together, if possible. For example, we toured a zoo on my first meeting trip. I sent in hard copy receipt attached to highlighted bank statement screenshot, email reservation from the tour guide, and photocopy of the wrist band we wore at the zoo (it contained the name of the location). If not all 4 items were available for the evidence buckets, I tried to attach at least the highlighted bank statement and receipt. I tried to make it easy for them. Then we separated the activities into the two trips, which you are already doing.
One additional thing I can think of that we did was include notarized affidavits from my mom and my fiancee's sister where our family members list off the timeline of our relationship based on what they experienced/know. Perhaps this could be further testimony from third parties as to the validity of your relationship and circumstances of meeting. Maybe they helped you plan the trips, helped with plane tickets, talked to you both on skype while away and/or met you, etc. Could be overkill, but it was nice to read what they wrote. While we did get an RFE, it was only for OKC, and you have everything you need for that.
For OKC, our lawyer also added in an exception from 8 U.S. Code 1375a(e)(4)(b)(ii):
-"an entity that provides dating services if its principal business is not to provide international dating services between United States citizens or United States residents and foreign nationals and it charges comparable rates and offers comparable services to all individuals it serves regardless of the individual’s gender or country of citizenship"
-At the following site (or similar), they printed the first page to highlight the title, and they also printed/highlighted section (e) Definitions in this section through the second bullet point in section 4 beginning "an entity that provides dating services"
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1375a
-extra: OKC's "about us" page has a line where they state "we're always free" as one of their 3 principles
-extra: I wrote a one paragraph letter for the OKC RFE where I stated and signed: "I, [x] do hereby state that I met my fiancé, [y] on the free online dating website OK Cupid on [date]. OK Cupid is a popular online dating website not affiliated with any marriage brokers."
Good luck, you'll get that NOA2 soon.