DeeJF

Not sure what the usual is but for us we got our interview scheduled about 3 weeks after our status was "ready to be scheduled." If you keep checking your status, it will change to "interview was scheduled" and that's when you know to be checking the mail. We did not get our combo card yet and likely will have the green card before EAD and AP. 

Not sure what the usual is but for us we got our interview scheduled about 3 weeks after our status was "ready to be scheduled." If you keep checking your status, it will change to "interview was scheduled" and that's when you know to be checking the mail. We did not get our combo card yet and likely will have the green card before EAD and AP. 

I wrote 3-4 checks a year before my wife's AOS.  Once we applied for AOS, I had her write checks from our joint account for as many bills as possible and then brought printouts of all the cleared check images.
 
Good luck and congratulations on the quick interview! - Jason 

Your evidence sounds good---best of luck!

Sounds like enough for a marriage of less than 5-6 months.  Besides, you can only bring what you have.
 
Good Luck!

Hi everyone,
 
We are so thrilled that we got a letter in the mail yesterday saying our AOS interview will be on October 18th! Our AOS packet was received by USCIS on June 26. We are pretty shocked with how quickly this has come about and now I'm nervous our lives haven't intertwined enough to bring evidence with us! We will obviously bring a copy of everything we sent with our initial packet, but does the below seem like enough additional evidence to have since then? 
 
We have:
1. Joint Checking Account
2. Joint Savings Account
3. Alien Spouse listed as a dependent on Health Insurance
4. Alien Spouse listed as a dependent on Dental Insurance
5. Alien Spouse as the person listed on our Internet Bill
6. Bills showing my last name has changed to his
7. Renters Insurance under both our names
8. Proof of shared vacation (New Orleans for a mini-moon)
9. Marriage celebration cards
10. Emails between us and our wedding venue for May 2020
 
If anyone can think of anything else we might be able to include/add my spouse to within the next month that would be great! 
 

You will be fine. We had the same thing.  We got married on Aug 4, 2017 and my husbands AOS interview was December 14, 2017 so we only had 4 months of "proof" to bring.  We brought pretty much the same thing that you did plus 2 photobooks that I made on Shutterfly.  One was of our dating journey and one was from our legal wedding.  We also had a wedding reception planned for 2018 so I brought the venue information for that but they never looked at it.  The interview ended up being super casual and she really just talked to us more than anything.  Just be confident and you will be fine!  Good luck!

I actually got a notification that you updated your timeline because our stats are similar.  That you're in the LA office as well and got an interview so soon really give me hope.  Congratulations!  That's so quick!

Hi everyone,
 
We are so thrilled that we got a letter in the mail yesterday saying our AOS interview will be on October 18th! Our AOS packet was received by USCIS on June 26. We are pretty shocked with how quickly this has come about and now I'm nervous our lives haven't intertwined enough to bring evidence with us! We will obviously bring a copy of everything we sent with our initial packet, but does the below seem like enough additional evidence to have since then? 
 
We have:
1. Joint Checking Account
2. Joint Savings Account
3. Alien Spouse listed as a dependent on Health Insurance
4. Alien Spouse listed as a dependent on Dental Insurance
5. Alien Spouse as the person listed on our Internet Bill
6. Bills showing my last name has changed to his
7. Renters Insurance under both our names
8. Proof of shared vacation (New Orleans for a mini-moon)
9. Marriage celebration cards
10. Emails between us and our wedding venue for May 2020
 
If anyone can think of anything else we might be able to include/add my spouse to within the next month that would be great! 
 

See second half of first post in pinned thread here:
 

That's great news!  You can have it as a signature through, Account Settings => Signature. 

Congrats on starting the process and welcome to the thread  

Mailed in our AOS packet today!

Mailed in our AOS packet today!

Mailed in our AOS packet today!

Mailed in our AOS packet today!

Mailed in our AOS packet today!

The video you watched was probably posted by someone who's cultural tradition is to use the maiden name as a middle name after marriage. It's common in the Philippines. Is that the tradition of your culture? If not you wont be following it.
 
You will input your new married name as your legal name on your spouses AOS forms and include your maiden name as other names used. 
 
Your updated SSN will state your new married name which is your legal name and then change your DL name after that. 
Your maiden name passport can be used in collaboration with your MC until you can update it so think of them as one document proving your legal name when travelling and also when being used to prove your US Citizenship.

Shes a female petitioner.

Think of AOS as starting over. Your visa days...names, addresses, etc have changed.
Make you AOS applications reflect the names you will go forward with. A married person can take the surname of the spouse. The USCIS knows you are newlyweds and all your older documents would have had maiden names or whatever. They see this day in and day out.
 
The OP petitioner does not have to use her maiden name, nor does she have to drop her middle name in favor of her maiden name.  Think about this, several years from now when your spouse applies for Removing Conditions and then citizenship, are you going to still be using the name from when you were single person filing a K1 petition. Use your new name now. 
 
 

Sometimes watching videos will confuse you more then help... On the 485 fill in the name you WANT to appear on your GC and SS card (and DL). If you are taking your husbands last name enter it. You will get your EAD and AP in that name as well (if you fill out those forms with the new name as well). Your passport wont match until you update it with the issuing country. Its OK to travel using mismatched names as long as you have proof (marriage certificate) of the name change. Eventually you will want to get your passport fixed to match. 

I wasn't really going to sweat the 15 bucks I spent on the certificate, I've blown more money than God on all the small stuff that seems to nickle and dime you to death. They can use it for toilet paper for all I care, destroy it, make a paper plane out of it and fly it around the office. It said send in a copy of your marriage certificate, I sent in what I had. I bought like 4 original certified copies, so I had extra laying around. I'm in the process of getting 2 of them certified by the US aspostile right now so I can register my marriage in a foreign country, and actually that was the cheapest thing so far at only 8 bucks each. I have yet to see someone get a RFE for sending in an original copy and them issuing a RFE saying please send in a regular copy, we don't want the original. But I have seen RFE asking for a original copy, so I erred on the side of caution.

Well! I guess if you have waited for 4 weeks then waiting for 2 more weeks shouldn't be any harm but if you really want to send your package then you can make copy of your original marriage certificate and send it. I had read posts by people who did that and it was accepted. My partner and I had gone to clerk's office to collect our marriage licence and came to know that we can self-solemnize our marriage and we can get the original marriage certificate and certified copies there itself so we got married at the clerk's office and got everything there.  The clerk informed that we can get more certified copies later as they scan the original and keep one in the system. The original will only be one. So we kept the originals with us in our files and sent 3 certified copies with the AOS package. 

Ah okay I think we'll have to wait. I have a "Customer Copy" (it says this in big letters across the form) of the marriage license/certificate. It is signed by witnesses and the officiant, but no seal. Thank you for your reply! 

FWIW, the long wait times for civil ceremony dates and for certified copies of your marriage certificate are why I'd suggest not getting married in LA county on a K-1. Orange, Ventura, Riverside (where we married), and San Bernardino counties are all much faster.
 
Still - is what you have fully filled out (with the officiant's signature, the local county clerk's signature, and the date accepted for registration)? If so, a photocopy of that is good enough.
 
You don't actually have to send certified copies your marriage certificate; photocopies are fine. But you do actually have to have a certified copy to start with (the original is filed with the county clerk's office; you don't get it).