I-129F and K1 Visa! How to Plan????

These sound like important questions and my only experience is the show 90 Day Fiance so I would suggest you contact the people who issue the visa to ask all these questions.

I think you need to talk to a lawyer; many of these processes take longer than you think; I've had several couples who didn't get their visas in time to have a legal marriage on their day. I've also married several who got their approvals early and had a very quick ceremony with me before their big family celebration.

Good luck!

Thanks as the time gets closer we will try to add that to the budget but for now I am trying to get as much done on our own because the process is already so expensive plus the cost of the wedding a lawyer on top could be too much. So I will see how much I can get done without a lawyer, but thank you.

Well the plan at the moment is to have a quickie wedding if we get the visa too soon or too late and then have an actual wedding later, but I would still like our wedding anniversary during those months. I also feel 4 months (September through December is a big enough window).

Besides a lawyer you can always reach out to your local federal senator and/or congressman. They might be able to answer general questions about the program as well; plus if you have paperwork filed they can help cut out some of the government red tape and get things processed sooner.

Start everything as soon as possible. You should consider the simple courthouse marriage route before the actual ceremony/wedding. I applied for I-129F in October of 2016. Fiance completed his interview at the US embassy in his country in April of 2017. The timing is different for everyone and also dependent on which embassy he will interview at (some are faster than others).

It is 6 months to enter the country and once he's in, it's 90 days to get married but I wouldn't wait to try to time it with a December 2019 wedding. If you are ready to make the legal commitment, do it earlier because even when the fiance enters the country, it takes time to get the paperwork for the marriage and then time to complete the paperwork to adjust status and get an employment authorization because the fiance is technically not allowed to work until he gets that. That process could take anywhere from 2-6 months.

Hubby had to stop working once we started the process and he's been antsy as hell to get his work permit to start having a normal work schedule.

I suggest start checking out visajourney.com for a lot of great resources. While you can get an immigration lawyer, the process isn't really as bad as you think once you read up on it. Best of luck to you.

ETA: I did a quickie courthouse marriage prior to our "wedding" so we could expedite everything. We just went in our street clothes and didn't make it an event of any sorts because in our mind, we knew it wouldn't be our anniversary date.

With our current admin in place? I'd start this asap.

Thank you Eileen! My fiance is from The Netherlands and their government tends to move immigration issues through pretty quickly since it is a small, but efficient country. I am hoping to get it approved by like June or July of 2019 because he graduates from University in July in 2019 so the moment he graduates he plans on coming straight here to get all the paperwork done get married and get him working. Once he graduates in July of 2019 this whole immigration process will be his only focus.

Congrats to you two! Hoping for a smooth process for you both! In the meantime, start keeping all boarding passes or evidence of trips where you visit each other. Think about keeping skype transcripts (appropriate ones of course) and call logs. Even post some things on facebook of when you two are together. You'll need it all later. The more evidence of an ongoing relationship the better.

Call the consulate of his home country. We've been doing that, and it's pretty effective. Much cheaper than an immigration attorney. But you pay in the time it takes for the call to go through. Good luck

Thank you Rachel! I'll have him look into calling his consulate.

Kate are you saying I should contact my U.S. Senator or my Texas State Senator?

Being a retired diplomat (I issued visas for a living), I'd suggest you skip the lawyer and your legislators. If you've got a non-complicated case (i.e., nobody has kids, a couple of ex-spouses and/or a criminal record), everything you'll need can be found at State's website, https://travel.state.gov/content/visas and through the visa section at the US Embassy (or consulate depending on where he lives) in your fiancé's country. Good record keeping is important to prove a bona fide relationship, so keep airline, phone, social media, and credit card records relating to your relationship. Keep in mind that visajourney.com and similar sites contain advice and information from regular people with experience but no expertise. Immigration is a big issue, yes, but fiancé visas are not part of that mix. The current administration is extremely unlikely to be able or willing to change immigration law that would affect you and/or your finance. However, with the large budget cuts facing State, visa section staffing will probably suffer. Problem is that it's impossible to know which Embassies will take the hit. Processing paper is the same no matter who's in the White House, but it could take a little longer depending on the bottom line in State's budget. The take home here is that the visa officers working the line want you to be happy and will do everything they can to help. Issuing fiancé visas is fun for us. Help the consular officers expedite your case by keeping your paper in order and following their instructions re timing. Good luck and congratulations!

Thank you so much Barbara!

Hey congrats ! We are going through the K1 process now and we decided to start planning our wedding for the summer of 2023. Would you give us an update on how everything went with you, and if the time you had planned to get married (sept-dec) did not change because of the waiting process of the visa? THNX