US meets UK

For the past 3 months, Mr.D’orsay and I have lived with my parents.

For the past 6 days (as well as the next 6 months), Mr.D’orsay and I will be living with his mother and brother.

Living with our respective families certainly has both positives and negatives, though in our opinion mostly positive! We’ve saved so much money (or really, saved the money we needed to spend on plane tickets) and had the opportunity to really bond with our families as a couple. Mr.D’orsay has had so many nice chats with my parents and I’d often come home to find Mr.D’orsay and my dad hanging out. My parents have really gotten to know him, which I think is even more important since they haven’t had the longest time to get to know him before we became engaged.

I’m not going to lie to you guys, for all the positives of living with parent’s there are a few negatives as well. We both found it difficult after living on our own to move back in. There is little time or space to find intimacy with each other, its difficult and occasionally opportunistic to do so. If we have a fight, its tough to separate, because there is no where to go! Equally, we each occasionally need our own alone time, which can be difficult to acquire in a house with others.

Its also the little things, such as dinner. Mr.D’orsay and I became used to cooking our own dinners in Miami, but in Maryland my parents would often cook dinner for four. It will probably seem odd to many of you that I’d occasionally not want dinner cooked for us, but its the loss of coupledom. Some days I’d really like Mr.D’orsay and I to choose our own dinner, cook it like we used to do and eat as a unit.

There are many things we’ve put off purchasing because we don’t have a home for them. We don’t have our own kitchen, dining room, bedroom or even our own walls. Because we don’t actually live anywhere, we don’t have an opportunity to nest or have a sense of permanence about where we live. So in some ways, our permanence travels with us, between us, where ever we go and isn’t tied to a place or a home that we call our own.

Have you had to move back in with your parents? How have you dealt with the positives and negatives of moving back?

First, I’m writing this as I discover episodes of Sally Jesse Raphael on TV.

I know right? You can’t get that in America anymore!

You’d also be unlikely to see any of these at your grocery store:

Would you like the FULL MONTY in a can, because in England, you can get it.

Perhaps you’d like a big saucy banger?

The old combo of beans with balls? Maybe you’re up for some red hot balls?

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH

Welcome to England, stay tuned for things both inside and outside of the Tesco grocery store

Again, its not so easy.

Or cheap.

(source)

Disclaimer: I am not am immigration attorney or specialist though we have visited them.  This is just our experience with the process so far.

In the US you’ll use an I-129 F form to apply for a K1 visa which gives you the right to marry a US citizen. This way if you intend to switch back and forth between your home countries everything will be much easier (or so we hear).  There are ways to get around this route, but we’re playing it safe since we’re not sure which country we’ll be living in yet.  

With this form you’ll need a check for $455, a boatload of evidence that you and your intended are actually a couple. We used plane tickets showing trips we’d taken together, credit cards statements showing we spent money in the same place at the same times, emails sent back and forth, the engagement ring receipt, and they allow you 5 pictures. We tried to include pictures of us in different places (AZ, FL, MD) and include photos of us with other people. Mr.D’orsay also created a quick “save the date” to include in the package so they’d know our wedding date and that we’d need the visa before June.

They have a website that will show you the approximate processing times for your center and ours is 6 months. We sent our paperwork to USCIS in October and have received a receipt back, but no further notification. They also have a place online where you can check on your status, but ours really hasn’t been updated (way to keep me stressed US government!). I just checked the site however, and it has changed to say that there is no longer a time frame since they’re exceeding the previous time frame and that they are currently processing applications for the fiance visa from March 2008. Great.

The next step is that Mr.D’orsay will have to go to the US embassy in London for an “interview”. We’ve heard from other couples who’ve done this that the interview is actually like going to the DMV or the bank, its just a window teller that asks you a few questions. Which is a bit unfortunate as we saved wedding contracts etc as addition evidence for this interview. Go figure.

We plan on returning on June 1st which gives us slightly more that 90 days once we enter. This is important because once you enter the country on a K1 visa you’ll have 90 days to get your marriage certificate and get married. Which means come hell or high water we’ll be married before August 29th, otherwise we’ll have to restart the whole process.

In the UK however, I’ve heard it only takes a few months to receive the fiance visa! I have a pretty large family and we can’t really afford to pay for a wedding in pounds, which are a few of the many reasons we decided to get married in the US. Though that “couple of months” waiting period sounds pretty nice!

You can’t work on a fiance visa while you’re in your fiance’s country either. With both the US and UK fiance visas you are not allowed to do paid or unpaid work, which means no internships, volunteer work, etc. Again, on the US fiance visa you have 90 days from point of entry to get married, in the UK they give you 6 months.

That’s our experience in fiance visas, I hope its helped you if you’re on this path and if not I hope you’ve gained some insight.

Have you had any immigrations issues? What advice can you add for other couples in similar situations?

Early on in wedding planning I found this photo on engageology (aka Kenziegirl).

I loved the idea of using “found” elements and re-using items, I thought it would be great how personal and handmade these could look. Little did I realize that most people BUY these corks like that. I thought who ever made them just really liked that type of wine…

Many people began collecting corks for me and at first I thought synthetic corks would be better for this project. As it turns out, the real corks are better to sand down and are much easier to play around with.

We thought an Xacto knife would do the trick of cutting the line in the top, but it was too thin. So my dad (who is a carpenter) whipped out a vice and his backsaw. Which worked, but wasn’t fast enough for my dad (imagine Tim the Toolman Taylor from Home Improvement).

So he borrowed my neighbor’s scroll saw….

I think if you’re not related to my dad, then the back saw would work just fine. The other tool we used was 60 grit sandpaper to flatten the bottoms.

Here is the finished product sans the actual place card:

Check out the guest, groom and bride!

How are you doing your placecard holders?

Spread all over the place that is.

In the past year or so I’ve lived in Baltimore MD, Tucson AZ, Miami FL, Columbia MD and now Lancaster UK. As you can imagine I’ve come to know and adore so many people from so many places!

This brings up a tough point, because there are so many dear friends I’d love to invite, but I’m not sure if A) I can fit them all or B) if they can all come. There are many people in Maryland that I was once close to, but now feel much closer to people I met during the past year and half.

I don’t want to not invite people because they live far away, especially because I’d really love to see them. Nor do I want them to feel obligated to buy a gift for us just because they’re invited. Is there a way to invite them so they feel included, but not obligated? We’re already inviting 85, when our set guest count is 80, so I don’t want to push that envelope too far.

What would you do if you were me?

Well, they don’t make it easy.

“They” being your respective governments. When Mr. D’orsay and I first decided that we wanted to see each other for longer than a week or two we started researching immigration laws. It was very difficult to find any resource that gave a simplistic overview of the process, everything was either a forum full of expat horror stories or complicated government jargon. I hope this serves as a comfort to anyone else going through the process, and informative to everyone else. I can only offer you our experience regarding US immigration with a sprinkle of UK immigration, but I still hope it helps you to know you’re not alone in this process.

In the US visitors from certain foreign countries can enter the country for up to 90 days. You should know important information regarding how you plan to support yourself during your stay, information regarding your return ticket, who you are going to visit and the address that you’ll be staying at. The government wants to be sure you’re able to support yourself while you’re here and you don’t plan on overstaying. The only issue going through the visa waiver program is that you don’t have the right to appeal, so if you’re denied or if they stamp you for a shorter stay, then you have to do what they say.

In the UK visitors on the same type of visa waiver program as in the US can enter for up to 6 months. Since it is such a long time they are very wary of people coming to stay for so long. You need to have all the same information as mentioned above, but its probably best if you provide back up documents. I didn’t have any supporting evidence, but to be honest, it was the first stamp in my passport so I think that helped my case since I was more bewildered than anything. The did end up detaining me, but only for an hour or so and to check out what Mr.D’orsay and I said separately. Their biggest concern was that whether or not I planned on working while I was in England and they wanted to make sure I didn’t overstay.

The best thing I can say about borders and border security is to simply tell the truth. Mr. D’orsay and I are staying with his mother, he owns two businesses, I had wedding invitations in my bag etc. I did feel exasperated about being detained, and I wanted to shout, “do you think we’d really design, custom stamp, emboss, assemble our invitations and pay the US government almost $500 if we were just going to hang out indefinitely here”?!!!? But thankfully I was able to keep my cool long enough to be let into the country. It really all depends on who you get, you could have a surly immigration officer, you could have a friendly one, you never know who you’re going to get.

What obstacles have you had to overcome to see your future husband?

So after you’ve seen how NOT to emboss your invitations, I should probably show you how to emboss them.

We ordered custom stamps, used dark brown ink and took the pads out of their containers to make a larger stamp pad, a stamp-a-majig, a heat gun from Joann’s and last but not least clear embossing powder.

Step one: Set your stamp a majig to where you’d like to stamp.

Step two: Stamp down. Our stamps were a bit large, so it was best to use two sets of hands for this project. For the bird stamp; Mr. D’orsay would stamp down, MOH MB would push down again using the wooden handle to make it even.

Step three: Quickly powder. Glittering hills of clear powder, tip off then hand to your heat gun operator. If you don’t have a heat gun operator, then you can leave all the stamped/powdered ones until you’re ready to heat them. The important part is quickly applying the powder to the stamped area. Don’t tap the paper to removed excess powder, wait till after you’ve embossed and simply dust the sheets with a rag.

DO NOT leave your cat alone near a hill of embossing powder…

Step four: Bring on the heat! Hold your heat gun an 1-2 inches away from the paper, be careful because you don’t want to burn the paper! You can see below when the powder begins to turn.

Un-official Step five: Attach the invite, we used tombow adhesive and it worked great!

This was a fun and rewarding project once we figured out all the kinks. I highly recommend practicing on scrap paper till you work everything out.

Most important lessons learned:

• Figure out the best stamping method for you and your stamps. Its very important to get an clean equal amount of ink on the page
• Use colored ink and clear powder – NOT the other way around
• A stamp-a-majig, though$12.00 turns out to be worth it

Did you have to learn any DIY lessons the hard way? Do you have any helpful embossing tips?

After reading Miss Fondue’s post on weddingbee, I decided we MUST have embossed invitations.

The only large ink pads we found were clear or black, so we opted for clear and began the hunt for brown embossing powder. With our powder in tow we headed back with our kinkos printed invitations and whipped out our custom stamps.

How hard could it be? Stamp, Powder, Heat…3 easy steps!!!

(Mr D’orsay is startled by my not-so-stealthy photo snapping)

But no matter how much we stamped, or powdered or heated it simply wouldn’t come out right! I kept re-reading Miss Fondue’s post trying desperately to figure out where we went wrong!

>See how splotchy the practice stamps are?!!?

Mr. D’orsay and I decided to try to reverse the process in case that was our problem, so instead of clear ink with brown powder, we got brown ink and clear powder. I’m a tease, so I’m not going to tell you any more, but lets just say, our invitations got embossed.

Let me first say, that I am a dedicated reviewer.

If I enjoy a service, or felt that it was extraordinary I write a letter or will review the service/product immediately. I depend on honest reviews for purchasing things off amazon, and the honest reviews of brides on wedding wire. After our engagement ring purchase I emailed Tiffany & Co. to let them know how fantastic our experience was. I’ve never really questioned the legitimacy of a review.

Perhaps I was naive. We’re pretty happy with our current caterer selection, my father is currently hashing out the contract. I REALLY wanted to find a caterer who used local, organic ingredients that hopefully would be in our price range. I was excited to find a local caterer who met those requirements, so even though we had met with Caterer A and Caterer B, we decided to look into Caterer C since they were the only local food/organic caterer we had come across.

When the caterer first called they kept Mr. D’orsay on the phone forever, and kept talking about how detail oriented they were. Afterward, the caterer sent Mr. D’orsay an email addressed to something along the lines of Mr. J’orsay. This automatically put me off, if this caterer is so detail oriented, couldn’t they get Mr. D’orsay’s name correct? Mr. D’orsay’s email even starts with Mr.D’orsay! Their price was also a bit higher than Caterer A or B, so we moved on with Caterer B and set up the aforementioned meeting and tastings.

Mr. D’orsay received a voicemail from Caterer C letting us know that due to the market they had lowered their prices. I began to think I could overlook the previous gaffe and air of pretentiousness until…

They offered us a BRIBE.

They would refund us $300 pending positive reviews on theknot.com and chowhound.com. You’ve got to be kidding me! As a dedicated “reviewer” if I enjoyed the service I’d happily give them positive reviews. I don’t mind if the incentive is small, such as free shipping, or a $5 gift certificate. But this was outrageous, I feel that that amount seems large enough to alter a review. I began to call into question the legitimacy of every review I’ve ever read about them.

In the end, I decided I’d rather have an ethical caterer than a local/organic one.

Is this a common practice? Have any of you ever experienced anything like this? Am I overreacting?

Would you like to know how to be a horrible bride?

Tip 1. Pick out a dress for your team, have 2 of the girls purchase them. Then VOILA! Change your mind completely.*

I have a confession, because although I may seem like a nice person, it turns out I’m a pretty terrible one! After purchasing these dresses from David’s Bridal, I decided I didn’t like them any more. Not just didn’t like them…HATED them.

Thus began the search for the long lost perfect bridesmaid dress. I went from wanting something not “too bridesmaidy” and fell head first into want shiny taffeta/silk shantung/silk duponi/duchess satin fever. I was looking for a tea or knee length, V in the front and V in the back straps(you’ll see why later) and SHINY. I told you, I had the fever!

Once the fever had bitten me I really wanted the Ann Taylor Christine dress. But by the time I got to a city that carried the line – they were gone – no more celebrations line!!!! No sizes above a 12 in concord grape! Heartbroken, I began an internet search for the dress but I had little luck. The hunt continued.

The first two stores were your average bridal stores, where there were a ton of dresses, but not in the right size or color or length. Our favorite dresses from each store were just a bit…lackluster? We just weren’t having very much fun or enthusiasm for the dresses.

Then we headed to DC to check out the Aria dresses, I already knew I liked the way they photographed (SHINY!) from the gallery on their site. This experience was completely different; it was nice, quiet and felt sweet, simple and relaxed in the show room. They had dresses of all sizes and colors to try on and everyone felt happy and excited to be there.**

The dresses I intended to see:

I also debated about having everyone in the same dress, or everyone in their dress of choice. As it turns out, everyone chose the same dress, but not only that, everyone looks great in it and we all love it!

The dress we chose:

I was sad that MOH Beth and I won’t get to go dress shopping together (at least for my wedding) but I scheduled her an appointment for when she is in town for the holidays and she and the rest of Team US can head back sans the bride.

How did you handle your bridal crew being spread out? Did you change your mind several times about their dresses?

*Don’t worry, we’re trying to sell the dresses and I’ll pay them back the difference/full amount if we can’t sell them.

**This could be due to the 3 cups of coffee/chai we’d all had prior to going in, but I’ll chalk it up to natural excitement…