Immigration and Weddings
December 9th, 2010 / Author: TedAny bride can tell you that just planning a wedding between two folks of similar backgrounds can be a royal pain. But what about when you are planning a wedding when one of the people involved is an alien to this country? At that point it becomes a real challenge. There are US immigration forms that have to be filled out and filed in order to apply for resident status. A Green Card will need to be obtained and then at some point a Green Card Replacement might have to be obtained, especially if there is a name change involved. All of this has to happen in addition to the normal wedding preparations that have to take place.
While this is not an impossible task it is still certainly a daunting one for most people placed into that situation. The US immigration forms alone can take months if not years to get through depending on how much you can stay on top of them. Then obtaining the initial Green Card if that is the case or the Green Card Replacement can add more time and expense to what is likely to already be a strained budget of time and money.
The first thing that anyone in this position needs to do is to lay out a master plan with all times and dates set forth on a calendar. This way you will both have a visual idea of the best case scenario for the combination of events and it will be easier to plan for possible back up plans in case something goes awry. It is also easier to make sure that you stay on schedule when in is all laid out in black and white. You will know precisely when you need to file the US immigration forms to get the Green Card or the Green Card Replacement taken care of along with when the various other wedding things are supposed to happen. And certainly the more stress you can reduce here at the onset, the better your chances are of having a semi smooth transition from single life to marred life.
Remember, the wedding will need to be secondary to the US immigration forms getting filed to obtain the Green Card or the Green Card Replacement because you often can not get married if this process is not taken care of. This by no means makes the wedding less important, especially to the bride but in the event that a wedding related item should coincide with an immigration item, the immigration item needs to take priority.
Once you have things laid out on your calendar of events, make sure that you build in a little breathing room and don’t try to mash everything together into one small area of time. That is a recipe for disaster. You are talking about your life and your future and it is better to leave room and do it right than cram and perhaps goof it up.
The US immigration forms, Green Card and Green Card Replacement will open up doors to both of you.