American to marry British citizen/immigrate to the UK

[loshad]

Hello, I am a native born American citizen who met his same sex partner online about a year and eight months ago and have been together ever since. We have met twice, once for a week in New York City. I believe he was granted a visa waiver for this trip. And another while I was on a visitor visa and stayed with him in his student accommodation for four months, so basically living together, and we decided that after testing the waters we plan to marry as soon as possible and I plan to remain in the UK and gain citizenship.

My partner has graduated university and now holds an apartment and and job in London (earns over 20k/yr) and we're a bit taken aback from all the visa choices and in some circumstances the visas listed on the official government site do not match the ones for the online application site, and to be honest, we're quite confused on what visa would specifically would work for us. I've read over the Fiancee visa, Marriage Visitor visa and 'join unmarried partner in the UK' route as well and while money isn't really a pressing issue, we'd rather not waste money on visas and it seems the fiance visa requires one or two applications? and you aren't allowed to work until you're granted a marriage visa?

So I was thinking about a marriage visitor visa, marrying, coming back to the USA and then applying to remain in the UK due to my spouse is a native British national? Anyone have advice? would be much appreciated!

[ronaldo567]

I think that's your best option unless you wanna stop working for 6 months (fiancée visa). Get married in the UK, go back to US and he will be able to claim you on a spouse visa (flrm form), as long as he meets all the requirements

[CR001]

I think that's your best option unless you wanna stop working for 6 months (fiancée visa). Get married in the UK, go back to US and he will be able to claim you on a spouse visa (flrm form), as long as he meets all the requirements

FLR(M) is for applications made within the UK only.

For applications made abroad, it is VAF4A and Appendix FM.

@loshad, if you do the fiance visa route, you can apply for a spouse visa (FLR-M) in person once you are married and you get a decision on the day. It is not a long, months on end, process if you apply to switch from fiance to spouse in person.

For the marriage visit visa route, you would have to show and prove strong ties that you do not intend to remain in the UK and if you partner is settled and established, this might be difficult.

In my opinion, you would do better applying for the fiance visa (part of the 'join family in the UK' process, get married as soon as you can and within the 6 months validity of your fiance visa and then apply to switch in person to the first of 2 spouse visa once married. If money is not an issue as you say, this is more doable.

[loshad]

I think that's your best option unless you wanna stop working for 6 months (fiancée visa). Get married in the UK, go back to US and he will be able to claim you on a spouse visa (flrm form), as long as he meets all the requirements

FLR(M) is for applications made within the UK only.

For applications made abroad, it is VAF4A and Appendix FM.

@loshad, if you do the fiance visa route, you can apply for a spouse visa (FLR-M) in person once you are married and you get a decision on the day. It is not a long, months on end, process if you apply to switch from fiance to spouse in person.

For the marriage visit visa route, you would have to show and prove strong ties that you do not intend to remain in the UK and if you partner is settled and established, this might be difficult.

In my opinion, you would do better applying for the fiance visa (part of the 'join family in the UK' process, get married as soon as you can and within the 6 months validity of your fiance visa and then apply to switch in person to the first of 2 spouse visa once married. If money is not an issue as you say, this is more doable.

In that case then the fiancee visa route is the best, I want to fully immigrate and become a British national as we're basically starting our lives together. I didn't know you received the decision that day in person! A lot better than waiting for a couple of months for the post decision then. Is the VAF4A and Appendix FM part of the Fiancee visa as well? According to the government you must apply online if outside the UK on https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk website, it asks you to list your visa type which would be settlement however, for Visa sub-type it lists: unmarried partner, civil partnership, marriage and proposed civil partnership. (Also lists others but have no relevance) I'm a bit confused on which one to choose on that website as we plan to marriage, so would the fiancee visa be considered a marriage visa even though we aren't legally married yet? Or unmarried partner

I know you have to provide evidence, but do you know if any specific evidence holds more weight than others? We have plenty of pictures together, pictures of him and I with his friends and family and if I recall correctly I'm able to pull our imessage logs, and possibly our facetime logs. He also wrote me a post card when he was in Berlin once, we've sent each other stuffed bears and such for Valentines, etc.

[physicskate]

I think that's your best option unless you wanna stop working for 6 months (fiancée visa). Get married in the UK, go back to US and he will be able to claim you on a spouse visa (flrm form), as long as he meets all the requirements

FLR(M) is for applications made within the UK only.

For applications made abroad, it is VAF4A and Appendix FM.

@loshad, if you do the fiance visa route, you can apply for a spouse visa (FLR-M) in person once you are married and you get a decision on the day. It is not a long, months on end, process if you apply to switch from fiance to spouse in person.

For the marriage visit visa route, you would have to show and prove strong ties that you do not intend to remain in the UK and if you partner is settled and established, this might be difficult.

In my opinion, you would do better applying for the fiance visa (part of the 'join family in the UK' process, get married as soon as you can and within the 6 months validity of your fiance visa and then apply to switch in person to the first of 2 spouse visa once married. If money is not an issue as you say, this is more doable.

In that case then the fiancee visa route is the best, I want to fully immigrate and become a British national as we're basically starting our lives together. I didn't know you received the decision that day in person! A lot better than waiting for a couple of months for the post decision then. Is the VAF4A and Appendix FM part of the Fiancee visa as well? According to the government you must apply online if outside the UK on https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk website, it asks you to list your visa type which would be settlement however, for Visa sub-type it lists: unmarried partner, civil partnership, marriage and proposed civil partnership. (Also lists others but have no relevance) I'm a bit confused on which one to choose on that website as we plan to marriage, so would the fiancee visa be considered a marriage visa even though we aren't legally married yet? Or unmarried partner

I know you have to provide evidence, but do you know if any specific evidence holds more weight than others? We have plenty of pictures together, pictures of him and I with his friends and family and if I recall correctly I'm able to pull our imessage logs, and possibly our facetime logs. He also wrote me a post card when he was in Berlin once, we've sent each other stuffed bears and such for Valentines, etc.

You might try heading over to UK Yankee (an American expat forum for the UK), where there are already lists of suggested docs specifically about applying from the US...

You need to read through the application for the marriage visa (you are not an unmarried partner as you would have to be living together for 2 years in a relationship 'akin to marriage' immediately before the application). Most of the evidence (but not all) is about financial and accomodation evidence. You should include a few (2-5) pictures of just the two of you to prove you have already met. They will want to see evidence of contact, such as skype logs of calls, lists of emails etc... Applications from the USA tend not to go massively overboard on relationship evidence (ie, don't send them stuffed animals!), but do prove that you have been in regular contact throughout your relationship. Flight ticket stubs would also be good evidence. They do NOT want to see the content of your messages to each other.