APPLICATION FOR PERMANENT RESIDENCE SUBMITTED

By Victoria

Colin's application to register permanent residence is now in the mail!

This application is headed off to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services lockbox in Chicago, Illinois. It also includes Colin's request for permission to work in the U.S. More details on the contents and requirements of this packet to come!

For anyone keeping track, it is now exactly one year and five months since we submitted the initial Petition for Alien Fiance(e) application. I didn't even realize until now that we also sent that one on day 7 of a month!

MARRIED

By Victoria

Sorry this post is so late -- we've been married nearly a month now! Whoops!

As mentioned before, we got married on August 7, 2015. We had a small, simple ring exchange ceremony in our apartment with just 3 friends and the officiant.

The following day, we drove down to Charleston where most of my family lives. We had a family get-together over the weekend to celebrate, plus took a moment to take some photos.

 

After that, we headed off to Lake Michigan for our honeymoon! It was a road trip -- we drove from SC up to MI, then over the next several days, we drove up the west coast to the top of the Michigan mitten. The big spots we hit were Grand Haven, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Old Mission Peninsula / Traverse City, and Mackinac Island.

We're settled in back at home and enjoying married life so far! On the paperwork side of things, we've sent to the courthouse the request to get copies our certified married license. Pretty soon we'll need to buckle down on submitting the application for Colin's green card, which requires quite a lot of evidence/documentation; although we've already met the 90-day requirement to get legally married, I'd still like to submit the paperwork around the time that 90 limit arrives on September 26. The sooner, the better.

Marriage Date!

By Victoria

We have a date: August 7, 2015!

We've booked an officiant to come to our apartment and conduct a short and sweet vow ceremony, including a ring exchange. She'll then fill out the rest of our marriage license and be responsible for mailing it back to the courthouse. After 10 days, we can write in to get certified copies from the courthouse.

The next day (Saturday), we're going to drive down to my hometown of Charleston, SC and spend the weekend with my family to celebrate. This will also be pretty low-key. I'll more than likely take that whole following week off of work as well, but we haven't decided what we want to do with that time (or where we might go!).

Marriage License Received

By Victoria

Today we went over to the Fairfax County Courthouse and got our marriage license! This is only part 1 of being officially recognized as a married couple...next is finding an officiant/celebrant who will fill out the bottom half of the form (the marriage certificate) and mail it back to the courthouse for final processing.

The process of getting the license was actually very simple. Fairfax County has a pre-application option online that allows you to fill out the paperwork before even going to the courthouse, which saves everyone some time. For both spouses, this paperwork is just basic information like your full name, level of education, parents' full names, birth state (or other country), etc. It's only about a page in total. Once that's submitted, you receive an email confirmation and instructions to bring a valid photo ID and Social Security Number with you to the courthouse. (The pre-application expires in 60 days.)

We were a little worried by the fact that Colin obviously doesn't have a SSN since he isn't a U.S. citizen, so to be safe, we collected pretty much every form of ID he brought over with him -- passport, birth certificate, driver's license, old voter registration -- and the official K-1 petition approval from the NVC in case we needed supporting evidence in lieu of the SSN.

Our visit to the courthouse was probably 15-20 minutes total...no problem. We went through security and got to the office we needed, where the wait wasn't long because there weren't many people. When it was our turn, we handed over our pre-application confirmation for the woman to scan, along with my driver's license and Colin's passport. There's also a $30 fee to get a marriage license.

After that she looked at Colin and asked him if he had a Social Security Number; he said "no," to which she just nodded and kept typing things on her computer. So we didn't need any of his other ID information! It turns out she just left that field blank. She didn't even ask for my SSN either and used my VA driver's license number in its place. Oh well.

The last part was just reviewing the information we'd submitted to make sure it was accurate, then she had us raise our right hands and take an oath that we were truthful with our information and intentions...then there was an explanation of the next steps, she handed over our packet of papers, and we were off!

Accepted through Immigration

By Victoria

Colin is flying out of Dublin, Ireland directly to the Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC (technically northern Virginia) at about 7:35 a.m. EST (in a few minutes). Dublin actually serves as a Point of Entry (POE) for immigration into the United States, which means they check your visa papers over there instead of having to wait until you land on U.S. soil. I got to talk to Colin this morning, and he's been accepted to immigrate to the United States!

Reportedly, it was very easy. All he had to do was hand his sealed visa packet envelope -- which he received after being approved at his London interview -- to the immigration officer. The officer opened it, looked through the papers, took a photo of Colin, and reminded him that we have to get married within 3 months. That was it! So once Colin lands in the Dulles airport, all he has to do is go through regular international customs/security.

His plane is scheduled to land at 3:35 p.m. EST!

Next Step: Legal Marriage

By Victoria

Once Colin is accepted at the border of the U.S., the K-1 Visa 90-day period to get married kicks in.

To be married in the state of Virginia, we only need to have a marriage license issued to us by the county court, have any certified officiant perform the marriage/fill out the marriage register, and have the officiant mail the form back to the courthouse. There is no requirement for witnesses, no blood test, no waiting period -- nothing like that. Easy! But there is also no Justice of the Peace at courthouses here, so we do have to find our own officiant. We can be married pretty much anywhere in the state, though...you could probably stand on the sidewalk outside the courthouse and have the officiant sign the marriage register right after you get it, if you wanted.

Given this process, it should be pretty easy for us to be married within a month after Colin arrives! There's no point in waiting, as that will only drag out the subsequent process to get his green card/permanent resident status and his work permission. (Yes, this will require a boatload of more forms and evidence, plus another months-long wait.)

As I've mentioned previously, we'll worry about having a small wedding ceremony later on, possibly a year afterward. We still plan to celebrate once we're married, though!

Preparation for Leaving (and Official Move Date)

By Colin

I have an official announcement for moving: My ticket to the U.S. is booked for June 26th.
I think my final day at work will be this Saturday (5th), and the next 3 weeks will be complete bedlam with getting everything else fixed before I go.

My visa expires July 7, so my time was running down. The visa lasts for six months, but they start it at the date of your medical exam instead of the date you're actually issued the visa.

My preparations are now well under way.

I have started to sell larger things that I won't be able to bring with me.  DVDs and CDs are being taken out of their boxes and the boxes thrown away.  I've used the boxes that blank CDs come in to store the discs, saving a lot of room and weight.  Aside from a lot of digital media, my main items for shipping are a few books and a couple of smaller electrical items.  These should fit in one or two medium sized boxes.

I have also had some good news regarding the flat.  I thought that under my Co-Ownership terms of agreement that it was impossible to rent, but since the flat had still not sold after a few months on the market and a reasonable reduction in price, I contacted Co-Ownership regarding my situation.

I attended an interview at their office and was told that I could rent the flat with certain clauses in place (permission from my mortgage lender, a legally drawn up leasing agreement with the tenant, proof that it had been on the market for a certain period of time and so on).

I'm still waiting for a form from the lender, but from what their man told me on the phone, he sees no reason that I would be turned down, which is a big relief.

If anything else of note comes up soon, I'll post another update!