Hi All.
A lot of questions at once, I know... But if you can answer at least some or give some advice, that would be great.
Background: I'm Polish myself, my fiancee is American, we've been together for 3+ years and decided to finally get married to settle down together. I've been living and working in Ireland for the last 4 years (same office job all the time), she spent most of the time in the States finishing her studies and finally graduating a month ago. So we're in a sort-of long distance relationship, except she was visiting Ireland and staying with me quite regularly for 1-3 months (tourist stay) during her school breaks.
We decided to marry in Poland (itself a bureaucracy hell) for a number of reasons, however the thing we're worried about is how is she going to be allowed to stay with me in Ireland until we're done - which will probably take some 4-5 months total. And because of how the process and the formalities go, we probably won't get any official paper relating to our prospective marriage until some 4-5 weeks from her coming here.
In short: an American girl needs to come and stay in Ireland for about 4-5 months in order to marry a Polish guy in Poland. At this point we have nothing official to prove our intention, and we can't get anything unless we're allowed to do at least some initial formalities together in Poland. Feels a lot like a lose-lose situation.
The questions:
1. Should she mention at all that she's coming here to get married at Dublin Airport Immigration? Is she likely to be turned back if she mentions that? That's her biggest fear because for some reason she was always under great scrutiny when landing here.
2. Related to the above, should she book her plane ticket for a 3 months stay (so it agrees with the allowed tourist stay period) and change the return date later (which costs), or book it for the more realistic 6 months and hope for the Immigration officer to believe her intentions and not give her any trouble?
3. Are there any documents or anything I could do or send to her in advance of her coming that she could show at Immigration to make her words more believable?
Now considering she's successfully landed and been admitted to Ireland:
4. Would she be eligible to get a GNIB Card right away, just based on her (and possibly my) word? Or only after we get some official papers pertaining to our marriage?
5. Would she, possibly, be eligible for a Residence Card via Form EU1, as my Partner? We don't have any sort of partnership certificate, but we've been in a steady relationship for much longer than the required 2 years. As for "satisfactory evidence of a durable relationship being in existence for at least two years" we have her and mine US-Ireland flight itineraries, some itineraries from our travel around Europe, a few postcards and letters, and a number of photos together. Would that be satisfactory enough, or should we wait with that until we're actually married?
6. Anything else you could think of?
Note that getting a permission to work for her is not the greatest priority (I can easily support both of us with my job), but it would be a welcome addition if only so she doesn't die of boredom while I'm at work during those 4-5 months.
Also, once we're married the plan is that she will go back to the States to find a job, and I will follow her ASAP (have a tourist visa, but will have to apply for a spouse one for me which is an entirely different story). So a very long term stay permit is not necessary, if that's any factor at all.I'm sorry for a long post and thank you everyone who read it though and helped at least a bit. The more we read about this the more bitter we are having to prove we're not potential illegals with every step. Seems really unfair to have to go through all this just for loving each other and finally wanting to live together without getting anywhere near the grey area...