Hi everyone!
Thought I should share...
By researching & asking people with experience, we realized that acquiring the documents here in Manila that's required for spousal visa might take a longer time and we also learned it is not the visa processing that takes a lot of time but acquiring the docs/requirements from the local government here. While as for fiance visa, we learned that we will just need to provide evidence that the relationship is genuine plus proof of intention to marry within the 6 months given in a fiance visa, which we do not think we will have trouble of doing so and also we'll need to submit some other documents that we already have (those same documents we provided when I applied for visit visa before and it was granted. I was in the UK with my love for 3 blissful months even though visa given to me was 6 mos multiple entry). I returned home and we immediately started preparing for wedding plans. We agreed the sooner we start with wedding preps the sooner we can be together. Anyways, a month ago that we decided that we would like to apply for Fiance visa instead, not spousal visa, but just one big thing... we did not think of this first before we started planning for our Philippines wedding since last January. As of today, our wedding venue and other wedding suppliers are already paid 50%. So we decided that we will go ahead with the wedding as we have already spent a lot and it will be a shame and waste if we cancelled, but instead we asked the church secretary if we can request for the Pastor to just pray for us and bless us on the celebration day without doing the legal side of a wedding ceremony. Meaning, no signing of marriage contracts, no filing of the marriage to the local civil registrar. Guess what she said? She explained, that can be done if what I am asking for is a prayer. But because I am going to wear a wedding gown, I will march, we will have exchange of vows and we will have 150 people attending our party, then that will have to be an actual wedding and the church must file the marriage documents or otherwise not doing so will result to the Pastor's license revocation. We did not know that! Now we know! doh! Not sure we are happy with this new information but still, it is good that it was explained to us and now we are back to our original plan. We will get married soon. We are very excited about it but at the same time, we are bracing ourselves for the long wait after the wedding. Looking at the calendar, we will only get to spend a week to the most, together as a husband and wife after our big day and then who knows when we will be together again. Should we be happy or sad :( ? Did I mention I am now 36? And we want to have babies! :((