NOA 2 Soon

Ack!  So, Nick and I are tentatively planning on an August 2010 wedding, but this depends on when his “Fiancé visa” (K-1 Visa) comes through.  We sent off the application for this back in mid-September, figuring that that would position us well for a summer 2010 wedding in terms of timing.

The problem is that USCIS is moving incredibly fast.  They are supposed to issue two notices of action (“NOA”s).  NOA1 is supposed to take a month to issue, and it just indicates that they have received your application.  USCIS sent it out to me within a week, though.  Then, there is supposed to be a gap of five months between the issuing of NOA1 and NOA2 (which indicates that USCIS has approved the application – although there are still many other hurdles that have to be gone through before the actual fiancé visa issues).  However, our NOA2 came today – just under a month after NOA1 arrived.

This is a slight problem for several reasons.  The visa is only good for a certain amount of time, and it’s a single-entry visa, which means that once it issues, Nick will no longer be able to enter the U.S. until it’s time for him to get married.  So if it issues before he comes to visit in January, we’re going to have problems.

Also, as we move further along in the application process, he may face further hurdles in terms of entering the U.S. before the visa actually issues.  I guess he’ll find out tomorrow whether he’s going to have any issues this time around – he flies to Nevada for work tomorrow.  Stay tuned…

Oh well, I suppose an early approval is still a much better alternative than, say, an early rejection.

Where do I live?

Well, in the spirit of this old post of mine, I’ve taken some pictures of my dorm room set up this year.  It’s similar to how I’ve set it up in previous years – basically, everything has a spot, and if you bring one extraneous item into the room the whole system falls apart – because all spots are already allocated.

 

Since the last photo was taken, one of the plants in it has already died (when I got back from Las Vegas it was flat as a pancake).  The other one still seems to be alive, though, despite minimal watering.  So that’s good.

Tomorrow I’m going up to Rumney to freeze.  Forecast doesn’t look good:

Stay tuned…

More Wedding Planning

So, it turns out that wedding planning kind of sucks.  I’m just trying to find a venue, but every suggestion I come up with results in Nick saying “that is way too large, we don’t have enough people” and Mombie saying “that is way too expensive, we don’t have enough money.”  The effects of this are exaggerated when Nick interprets venue maximums as de facto minimums and Mombie comes up with arbitrary inflated figures (“Alcohol is going to cost $10,000 alone, you know”).  And I found a list on a caterer’s website of things I’m supposed to do for a wedding – I’m already hopelessly behind (am I really supposed to be ordering a wedding dress seven months in advance?), and I’d say that about 30-40% of the things on that list are things that I didn’t even know you were supposed to do.

But, the silver lining is that I’m also finding some fun stuff.  I was aware of Cake Wrecks long before the recent NYT article on it, but the article was a good excuse to go back to this page, and particularly enjoy this photo.  This is starting to confirm my suspicious that I’d rather have cupcakes and ice cream…

Oh, and I also found this website specializing in funny engagement photos.

In other news, I have a lot of other stories to blog on that I’ve been piling up – I may post more this weekend.

Facebook Could be my Wedding Planner

So, as predicted, the ads on Facebook have been very excited for me getting engaged.  Current ads include:

• Wedding Weightloss
• Engaged?  Get a free gift
• Planning your Wedding
• New England Brides
• Custom Wedding Stationery
• Boston Wedding Photo
• Pros Wedding Photography
• Save the Dates
• Free Wedding Photography
• Preparing for a Wedding?
• Cambridge Weddings
• Getting Hitched?

Etc.  Nick isn’t doing as well – he only has one “Getting Married?” one, and one for flowers.  He also has one for “Luxury Florida Villas” – so I’m not sure if the advertisers have as clear a grasp on him as they do on me.

In other good news, I have sent off the I-129F form, the form we have to file to get Nick a visa to move here and marry me.  So far the immigration office has indicated they’ve received it, but the next step of approving it could take up to five months.  Stay tuned!