How We Obtained the K1 Fiancee Visa: Part 2

For those of you who missed the party, here’s the link to Part 1

After several months of waiting, we finally got approval from the USCIS for my petition for my fiancée to apply for a K1 Fiancée Visa.

Next step was filing out the next bundle of paperwork.

Hubby had to fill out:

• Form DS-160
• Birth Certificate
• Police certificate from Bolivia and Spain
• Medical Examination (including up-to-date vaccinations)
• Affidavit for support (someone to help them out when they first arrive)
• Evidence of relationship with fiancée
• Fee (because, of course, you need to pay money)

It took a while to collect everything, especially since we were living in Madrid, and most of the documents we needed were in Bolivia. Trying to coordinate between Spain, Bolivia and United States was quite a headache.

Another issue we dealt with was the expectation of US vaccinations vs other countries. Hubby had to get revaccinated, and receive even more when he finally entered the US. 

With the evidence of a relationship, we had to prove we’d actually met each other and spent time together. We sent copies of confirmations of my plane tickets to Madrid, and we had to send copies of pictures of the two of us, time stamped, with different dates.

Once we sent all of that paperwork in, we had to wait several months before getting a response. To get the final approval, we both had to go into the embassy for interviews.

I know what you’re thinking. Forget everything you saw in The Proposal. The interviews were nothing like that. We had to go up to a window, in public, and talk through the glass. I had to again prove I’m from the US, and to prove our relationship was legitimate. We weren’t asked obscure questions. They basically asked the same information we’d already given in all the paperwork. They interviewed hubby in the same way.

Then we had to wait, again, for them to send the visa through the mail. This part seemed the longest because we were running against the clock. We finally got the visa two days before we flew to the US.

Before entering the US, before getting onto the plane, they went through the paperwork, in the airport. That was quite stressful, because we only had a half-hour layover in Ireland, and I was worried we wouldn’t make the flight. But they just wanted to make sure everything was in order and stamped and approved.

Once we arrived in the US, we had 90 days to get married. Since we weren’t even sure if we’d get the approval we wanted, it was a quick, crazy few months, planning everything out.

But it worked out in the end.