# US Citizen married to UK Citizen going through CR-1 process (New to forum)



## MrsNightfire (Jul 23, 2013)

About me and my experience(s):
I am a US citizen and my husband is a UK citizen currently residing in the UK. We met online and dated long distance for 3 years before getting engaged. At that time we went to see an immigration lawyer about our options.

After we looked at the difference between the Fiance Visa and the Spousal Visa we decided to get married first (in the UK) and then file for the Spousal (CR-1) visa. We opted for this for a number of reasons:
1) With the CR-1 visa, once he is approved and comes to the US he can begin working immediately.
2) It's cheaper than the K-1 process by roughly $750 US
3) Overall, it's a little bit of a shorter process from start to permanent residency
4) We have more control over travel dates and therefore travel costs. For example, once the K-1 is approved you have 90 days in which to travel and complete the marriage from the date it is approved. With the CR-1 he can travel to the US on his own timeline.
5) Various personal reasons.

For those that might be considering getting in the UK as we did here is some more information that might be helpful:
England has a residency requirement (for both parties) of at least 7 days before you are allowed (on the 8th day) to file for you marriage license or "Notice of Intent to Marry". It then takes 15 days from the date you have both filed your Notice of Intent paperwork before you can get married. So essentially, you must be present in the country for at least 23 days prior to your wedding day. 

Though my husband lives in England, we opted to marry in Glasgow, Scotland. The reason for this is that Scotland waives the residency requirement. Like England, Scotland also has the 15 day waiting period for the Notice of Intent to Marry. However, Scotland does not require you to file those Notices of Intent in person. We were able to make all of our arrangements with the registrar and submit all of our paperwork via email and postal mail. We drove to Glasgow the day before our wedding and picked up our license in person but we technically could have waited until the day of.

Regardless of whether you choose to get married in England or Scotland, the US citizen must go through the process of getting a Marriage Visa through the British Home Office. This costs £80 and includes the US Citizen registering their Biological Data with Homeland Security. Essentially, that means you have to go to your local Homeland Security office and be fingerprinted and photographed for their background check which they then forward on to the British Home Office. But first you have to fill out Form VAF1F which is extensive. I had to include with that form a letter from my employer stating my rate of pay and that I had permission to take time off to travel to the UK for my marriage and that I would have a job when I returned. We had to include wage slips from both of us and a letter from his parents which stated I had permission to stay with them while I was in the country for the marriage proceedings and following. We also had to include copies of any marriage and travel plans we had made thus far. It didn't help that I had been married previously so I had to include documents pertaining to my divorce, etc. It can be quite a daunting task to tackle the paperwork involved with the UK Marriage Visa but I feel like it merely prepared us for the CR-1. At the very least, all of the information and paperwork we gathered for that will be used again for our CR-1 so the effort wasn't wasted.

At the time of our wedding, I was unemployed so we did not file our CR-1 immediately upon my return to the US. In fact, it has been almost a year since we were married and we are just now in the process of doing the paperwork. It took some time for me to secure another job and in the meantime my husband was saving money so that when he does come to the US he will have a cushion of funds to give us some breathing room while he settles in and finds a job.

I am excited to get this process completed and have him here with me. I am also excited to explore this forum and see what information others have offered. If anyone has any advise to offer or questions about what I have posted, please post!


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

Thank you for sharing your experiences!!! Please keep us posted.


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