Hello everyone! I hope you?re enjoying your weekend?I know I am, after the whirlwind of a week I?ve had. Within the past seven days, Ben and I completed, submitted, and received a decision on (!) my UK fiancée visa application. It all happened so much faster than I expected, I?m still trying to wrap my head around it. Oh, and yesterday, the day the visa decision arrived, just happened to be my last day at my job of nearly four years. No big deal.

This visa application experience has been one of the most nerve-racking of my life, and I?m still reeling from all of the adrenaline, cortisol, and who knows what else coursing through my system over this past month. Though that?s how long Ben and I spent actively working on it?we spent the better part of at least one weekend day for the past four weeks filling in forms, writing personal statements, collecting documents, requesting reference letters, and screencapping nearly five years of email correspondence and Skype logs?this visa has been the bane of our collective existence for years now. The income requirement?basically, Ben needed to prove that he?s been earning the equivalent of £18,600/year consistently over each of the past six months?has a lot to do with why we?re only getting around to marrying this year. Until Ben started his training contract this past August, he wasn?t hitting that mark (and was self-employed to boot, another black mark), and with no viable option for getting me to England long-term there didn?t...