NotworkSte

Hi all,
First time poster, bit of a lurker....

I have a question, and it may seem a little irrelevant in this section but wasn't sure where else to put it. My fiancée and I are planning to get married this year in my home town in Northern Ireland, but will be living in Tampa, where the company we both work for is HQ'd. She US citizen, and I'm british. Never been overly concerned with the details of how it would work out since I assumed the hard part would come when we were married and submitted my app for spouse visa. But as it turns out, what's stressing me out just now is the marriage visitor visa for getting married in the UK. I had no idea till yesterday it even existed!

I have an open query with worldbridge to clarify some points but was wondering, did anyone here choose to go this route and actually marry in the UK instead of the US? If so, how long did it take for the marriage visitor visa to be approved? We were hoping to tie the knot in May this year so I may have left it too late.

Noorah101

Hi and Welcome to BE.

You'll want to check out this website: http://www.uk-yankee.com/

Then come back here to BE when you're ready to make the move to the USA.

Best Wishes,
Rene

jeffreyhy

NS,

Please clarify where you are presently living and working.

Regards, JEff

NotworkSte

Thanks for the tip Rene, will check that out.

Jeff, I'm currently living and working in Edinburgh.

jeffreyhy

Thanks.

Best wishes getting that UK visa for your fiancee.

Regards, JEff

LynannC

We got married in Scotland, then I moved over to Florida to be with my hubby once I got a visa. The marriage visitor visa is really straightforward to get. My hubby applied online then sent his evidence and passport next day by FedEx. The whole thing was completed and returned to him in less than a week. I have heard others report it taking about a month, but that's still not a long wait, especially compared to US visas. For Florida it's the New York Consulate your fiancee should apply through.

Lyn

NotworkSte

Been /afk for a while. Appreciate all the replies, thanks

Just a wee update, she has applied for the marriage visitor visa and getting the biometrics done in some place in Tampa tomorrow, shouldn't be an issue getting it approved for May. Funny enough the longest delay was getting her daughter her first passport as they wanted her passport number. Supid long wait for us at the Tampa office followed by 2 weeks of them not issuing the number. Aaaanyway, it's all in hand now.

So it looks like May wedding is on. And after that, begin the process of me moving to the US. Trying not to think of that right now though, will get the wedding out of the way first

NotworkSte

Hi Lyn. She got her passport back on Thur, came from Chicago. Have to say, they were very fast from point they received the app and biometrics to the point the visa was issued, took about 7 days, and that included a couple of days for us to fedex them some additional cash. Very pleased with that.

Mummy in the foothills

Congrats so the weddings all set then?

meauxna

Congratulations!

I shouldn't leave it that long.. there are documents the USC can bring over to the UK and it's going to take a while to learn the immigrant visa process too. If you want to minimize the separation after marriage, you might want to look ahead.

LynannC

As you're getting married in Scotland you can ask the registrar if you can collect your marriage certificate the same day. We did. We got married on the Monday (religious service) then took the marriage schedule to the registrars office first thing Tuesday morning. We asked them if we could pick it up by hand later that day, as my husband was flying back to the US on the Wednesday. It was ready for us in just a couple of hours.

If you get your marriage certificate straight away you can then file the I-130 as soon as you have the certificate.

Lyn

NotworkSte

Hi all,
Yep wedding all set for 4th May. Got an understanding boss who lets me work remote so was over there last week, we got the rings sorted. She got her dress done this week, typical work called (she works in IT) and was late, but the seamstress and her assistant kept the place open till late as they were excited to be fitting her up for an Ireland wedding!

To be honest, I never realised how long the process took till I started visiting this site to get me over there. Current thinking is she might actually move over here with her daughter since it seems such a faff to go that way. Not that it would be an awful lot quicker though. But we would prefer for me to go over there, so we're going to have to be ready to do with the paperwork either way, so that's some good advice on the certificate Lyn. I'll get her to bring what she needs for the I-130 with her.

On the plus side, even though the process will take a while, we both travel a lot (same company), so there is a lot of opportunity for company sponsored conjugal visits ;-) We're both in Berlin and Cairo over the nexr few months. The time apart is horrible though.

Noorah101

Just be careful about this part. Am I understanding you correctly that you were working remotely while you were in the USA, on the VWP? That's a no-no, and I wouldn't do it again if I were you.

Rene

LynannC

I may be wrong, but I think you can use the VWP for business trips, as long as you don't stay more than 90 days and you are being paid from back home. The VWP is not just for pleasure trips.

NotworkSte

What I'm doing when I "work" there is carrying out meeting and appraisals and the like on with my staff who are based there, my responsibility is the global network of which the US forms a part and I have direct reports in the US. We've never had a problem with carrying out company business like this on VWP before, the advice the lawyers took from the US Government was that, with certain restrictions, this is how we should do it.