Visa validation dates. Help!

[ts_to_ca]

Hello, I have a quick question.

My missus and I are going to start filling out our fiancee visa forms in the coming weeks. We're hoping that she'll be moving here on October 31st (that's our planned travel date). At present, we are aiming to get married in early April next year (within the 6 months you have to do it). Anyway. The question is, if we fill out the forms and the visa gets validated on, let's say, August 1st, is the visa valid from the date of issue or can it be post-dated to the date you wish to fly?

Thanks in advance.

[Casa]

You can ask for the visa to be post-dated up to 3 months ahead.

[ts_to_ca]

Thanks.

Another question: We are looking at getting married in April (family travelling reasons), which, assuming everything goes according to plan, will be the last month the fiancee visa will be valid for. Will this be a problem? It's probably going to mean getting married one day and filling in forms/sending them off a couple of days later. What will happen if the spouse visa gets issued AFTER the fiancee visa expires?...

[ts_to_ca]

FYI: We're planning on getting married on April 10th. Theoretically, her fiancee visa may expire on May 1st. That'll give us around 15 days to get stuff sorted out and sent off. This won't change anything will it? I'm worried that it might. I was told that they'd automatically extend it until the spouse visa is sorted...

[MPH80]

It's not so much a case that they automatically extend - more that the leave doesn't expire while you have a valid application in progress.

I think the thing I'd say to you is that planning to have the date so close together doesn't allow any contingency.

What if a critical guest (parent/family member) falls ill and you have to postpone? What if something happens to one of you? What if the venue you choose has an emergency and has to reschedule?

Not directed at you - but we see this a lot here - posts from people saying 'I planned to do X one day after I expected the visa to be delivered but it isn't here yet ... what do I do now?' or 'I've got a holiday booked but the only same day appointment I could get was the day after - what do I do?'.

I, personally, fail to understand why anyone works like that - e.g. failing to allow enough time between events - and I wouldn't want you to become one of those postings.

(I will just caveat my little rant there with the fact I've been through this process with my wife - from fiancee -> wife -> ilr -> citizen and we didn't take anything for granted any time. The only time we took a risk was on the initial fiancee visa where we had all our suppliers on standby for a delay in the process. I don't claim to be holier than thou on this - but I would advise everyone to plan with sufficient contingency).

[ts_to_ca]

MPH, trust me; we don't work like that. Usually. Getting married in April is, apparently, more convenient for her parents to fly here from California and stay a little longer.

I understand what you mean about unforeseen circumstances. They can happen at any time though; although yes, the later you leave it, the harder they are to rectify.

This isn't a totally definitive plan. I dare we can get married earlier, but her parents will have to stay for a bit less time and whatnot. But hey, it's May now. They've got plenty of notice to put holidays in if they have to.

I just want to try and be sure that leaving it a bit late won't change anything or affect our application.

[MPH80]

Nope ... Won't hurt your application at all. As long as it is submitted before the expiry of the previous visa you're fine.