I got married this past may in Philadelphia. Me and my wife had plans of having a small wedding ceremony a few weeks after we applied for ou...

Question

I got married this past may in Philadelphia. Me and my wife had plans of having a small wedding ceremony a few weeks after we applied for our license. We went to an pastor who was able to sign our papers and he did so in his house after talking to us both but dated the license 2 weeks in advance. The reason for this was because we were planning on having our small wedding on this day so he said he would just date it for that time.

Well, within those two weeks, my wife's father put a halt to any plans saying his daughter deserved a bigger better wedding. We are both college students and do not have much money so that big wedding to this day has never occurred. The plan now is to have the wedding ceremony next December.

To communicate matters, my wife has applied for an "Adjustment of status" due to overstaying a Visa when she was a child (out of her control at 8 yr old). At the moment we still cannot afford to even live with each other and are both still with our respective parents.

I am deathly afraid that my wife's application will be denied due to all the suspicions and complications in our marriage. I fear that they will not view us as having getting married in "good faith" if we do not even live with one another and never even had a wedding!!

Our immigration attorney has a good reputation and has reassured us that the INS will not give us problems but I do not know how accurate that statement is.

I love my wife to death and we have plans of moving in with one another soon. I just want her to have the absolute BEST chances possible of getting approved.

What should we/can we do? Have we gotten ourselves into a loosing position?

Answer

If you are represented by counsel, I do not like to give a second opinion without being able to review the file first.

In general, if a marriage is solemnized & recorded by the county-recorder's office, then it is considered a legal marriage. However, USCIS could very likely find it suspicious if the couple is married but not living together.

Marriage on paper only will not get a person a greencard. If the married couple does not have the joint documents to prove that they are living together, sharing money/assets & expenses/debts, etc., then the applicant's I-485 application could very likely be denied.