August Wedding, Then Back To The Uk. Visas? Agents?

[somtom]

Sorry if my questions are a bit naive. I've always enjoyed lurking the other parts of the forum, but never quite thought I'd be posting here for immigration advice, but here goes.

My fiance and I are engaged since Dec and looking at an August wedding, after which we'd like to live together back in the UK where I have a job (just started) and live in a spare flat my parents own. I have a good wage and decent enough savings, she has a good job and an MBA from the US too.

We've not lived together for 6 months and won't be as I'm working in the UK now, and she's at a law firm in Bangkok until our wedding. I did stay with her in BKK for 4 months last year and before that we both lived in the USA for years, but not living together - just dating. So I think this will basically bugger up our chances of going straight for a settlement visa. As far as I can see that will not come until 6 months together, which will probably mean after 6 months in the UK. Am I right?

So our current plan is to apply for the UK Fiance visa some point this summer, have a traditional wedding in Thailand and get the certificate, then move to the UK and upgrade to settlement visa as soon as we can. Does this sound feasible? Any better options?

I was thinking of getting a solicitor or agent to help us out. Is this necessary and if so do we hire one in BKK or in the UK? Any recommendations?

I'm back in TH for 2 weeks next month. Should I get started on everything at that point or do we still have plenty of time?

Thanks in advance.

[CharlieB]

Sorry if my questions are a bit naive. I've always enjoyed lurking the other parts of the forum, but never quite thought I'd be posting here for immigration advice, but here goes.

My fiance and I are engaged since Dec and looking at an August wedding, after which we'd like to live together back in the UK where I have a job (just started) and live in a spare flat my parents own. I have a good wage and decent enough savings, she has a good job and an MBA from the US too.

We've not lived together for 6 months and won't be as I'm working in the UK now, and she's at a law firm in Bangkok until our wedding. I did stay with her in BKK for 4 months last year and before that we both lived in the USA for years, but not living together - just dating. So I think this will basically bugger up our chances of going straight for a settlement visa. As far as I can see that will not come until 6 months together, which will probably mean after 6 months in the UK. Am I right?

So our current plan is to apply for the UK Fiance visa some point this summer, have a traditional wedding in Thailand and get the certificate, then move to the UK and upgrade to settlement visa as soon as we can. Does this sound feasible? Any better options?

I was thinking of getting a solicitor or agent to help us out. Is this necessary and if so do we hire one in BKK or in the UK? Any recommendations?

I'm back in TH for 2 weeks next month. Should I get started on everything at that point or do we still have plenty of time?

Thanks in advance.

Certificate after a traditional wedding? Are you talking about having a legit wedding in Thailand or one of the Thai traditional ceremony's which aren't actually legal weddings? If you are talking about a legal wedding registered at an amphur then you don't want to apply for a fiance visa, as this is a visa to enter and marry in the UK, you would be looking at a spouse visa application. You misunderstand what a settlement visa is. You are mixing up FLRs which are applied for after a fiance visa & UK wedding and spouse settlement visas.

You don't need an agent, you need to have a search through this forum to inform yourself on what the various visas are, what the requirements to gain them are etc. No, you don't have to get an agent or lawyer ot help you apply for a visa. If you can use the search function here and fill in official forms then you can do it all yourself and save a few hundred pounds on an agent. If you do get an agent make sure it's a decent legit one, not a fly by night one that doesn't know the process and claims to be able to get a you a visa or your money back etc.

Whichever route you decide to take (Marry in Thailand/spouse visa or UK/fiance visa) then search here and all the necessary info is here. Also, you can only postdate a visa 3 months, so next month would probably be too early for a return to the UK sometime in August.

Edited March 5, 2009 by CharlieB

[mariner29]

A 2 year settlement visa is what you will require using form vaf 4.

[somtom]

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful so far

Charlie B

Certificate after a traditional wedding? Are you talking about having a legit wedding in Thailand or one of the Thai traditional ceremony's which aren't actually legal weddings? If you are talking about a legal wedding registered at an amphur then you don't want to apply for a fiance visa, as this is a visa to enter and marry in the UK, you would be looking at a spouse visa application. You misunderstand what a settlement visa is. You are mixing up FLRs which are applied for after a fiance visa & UK wedding and spouse settlement visas.

We were thinking that before or after the ceremony, we will get registered in amphur or just skip that for now and get registered when we get to the UK instead. I didn't realise that there was a spouse visa that was different to a settlement visa and that it was such affected, thanks for letting me know. To be clear we can do it either way and apply for either visa type, we are just looking for the one that will get to work rights in the UK as quick as possible. Which is that, and is it likely in our scenario (having not co-habited for 6 months) that we will be able to apply for it?

Thanks again. I will try to find time to give the older posts a full-on search soon, sadly just very busy with work right now and feeling a bit of panic about where to start researching with so much different information online. Any relevant threads I should read through?

[CharlieB]

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful so far

Charlie B

Certificate after a traditional wedding? Are you talking about having a legit wedding in Thailand or one of the Thai traditional ceremony's which aren't actually legal weddings? If you are talking about a legal wedding registered at an amphur then you don't want to apply for a fiance visa, as this is a visa to enter and marry in the UK, you would be looking at a spouse visa application. You misunderstand what a settlement visa is. You are mixing up FLRs which are applied for after a fiance visa & UK wedding and spouse settlement visas.

We were thinking that before or after the ceremony, we will get registered in amphur or just skip that for now and get registered when we get to the UK instead. I didn't realise that there was a spouse visa that was different to a settlement visa and that it was such affected, thanks for letting me know. To be clear we can do it either way and apply for either visa type, we are just looking for the one that will get to work rights in the UK as quick as possible. Which is that, and is it likely in our scenario (having not co-habited for 6 months) that we will be able to apply for it?

Thanks again. I will try to find time to give the older posts a full-on search soon, sadly just very busy with work right now and feeling a bit of panic about where to start researching with so much different information online. Any relevant threads I should read through?

Spouse visa is a type of settlement visa. A settlement visa is a visa obtained to move to the UK. You can do this under a number of ways, one of which is as a spouse or partner of someone from the UK. It sounds like you should get married properly in Thailand and register it with the amphur and apply for a spouse visa as your other half would then be able to work on the spouse visa. If you got a fiance visa she wouldn't be able to work until you got her FLR. Don't get mixed up with having lived with a person for a number of years as a couple and then being able to come to the UK as the unmarried partner of someone from the UK. I think you've mixed several different visa types up. You look like you need to search the forum for posts on the spouse visa and how to get married in Thailand.

Edited March 5, 2009 by CharlieB

[Orac]

I went through this a couple of years ago but registered the marriage legally a couple of months before having the traditional ceremony in Thailand. This gave me plenty of time to sort out a spouses visa for my wife (enabling her to work in UK) who returned to the UK wiith me a couple of weeks after the village wedding. Technically it would have been possible to do everything (legal, traditional and visa) in three weeks but would have meant a lot of messing about whilst I had family over from the UK. I did use a UK OISC registered agency (google Orchid of Siam) who were extremely helpful and had offices in the UK and BKK however, in hindsight, I could probably have done it all myself without any help though the peace of mind I got from using them was worth the money.

[somtom]

Thank you Orac - great to have advice from someone who's been there, done that.

Perhaps we should just go have the marriage registered when I am over in April so that I can apply for the spouse visa in the run-up to the thai wedding in August. As I am so busy right now and April is so soon, I think an agency like Orchid of Siam would be best. How much did it cost you in total, roughly? (if you don't mind me asking)

Thanks CharlieB also for the extra information. I had some idea of the difference between spouse and FLR type visas before, I just assumed that we wouldn't get any chance of the spouse one as we have no record of co-habitation yet. Everything I read on the UK visa site suggested that this was a major point.

[CharlieB]

Thank you Orac - great to have advice from someone who's been there, done that.

Perhaps we should just go have the marriage registered when I am over in April so that I can apply for the spouse visa in the run-up to the thai wedding in August. As I am so busy right now and April is so soon, I think an agency like Orchid of Siam would be best. How much did it cost you in total, roughly? (if you don't mind me asking)

Thanks CharlieB also for the extra information. I had some idea of the difference between spouse and FLR type visas before, I just assumed that we wouldn't get any chance of the spouse one as we have no record of co-habitation yet. Everything I read on the UK visa site suggested that this was a major point.

As long as you can prove through phone records, letters, photos, emails etc that you have had genuine relationship for a period of time then you don't have to have lived together to apply for spouse visa, you just have to be legally married. Do a search here and you'll see posts from other people who have had a relationship, not lived together, but done the wedding & visa in a short space of time during a visit to Thailand.

[7by7]

we are just looking for the one that will get to work rights in the UK as quick as possible.

Both a fiance and a spouse visa are types of settlement visa.

For a brief explanation of the difference and other information, see this post.