Lawyer Time



While I was visiting Chicago one summer, we were talking about marriage and figured we should probably talk to a lawyer to see about our options. I highly recommend this. There are a ton of immigration lawyers that do free consultations, so there’s no reason you should have to pay for this service, and it can give you a good idea of what the best choice is going forward. We saw a lawyer and explained our situation. He was honest with us and told us that while he’d be happy to take us on (to the tune of a $3000 retainer fee), we probably didn’t need his services, as we had a fairly straightforward case:


- Neither of us has children


- Neither of us has been married before


- Neither of us has ever been arrested


- Neither of us has had any issues crossing the border


So, we debated about our options but ultimately ended up going with a company called Boundless. I want to be clear that this isn’t an advertisement for Boundless. What they did is boil down the questions to simple web forms that we filled out. From there, they generated the answers we gave into the proper forms that we would fill out if we were doing it ourselves. They sent them to us for edits, which we gave, and then they sent us our whole package. In the next section, I’ll go into greater detail about what we had to provide and what this form was called.


*Side note: if you do end up going with Boundless, make SURE you do thorough edits. Their technology is good, but it’s not foolproof. YOU’RE the one who knows your information.





The fun feature about our decision (based on what our lawyer told us) was that we decided to get married right away (it was super simple at the courthouse, but keep in mind that you need to get a marriage license first, and then wait 24 hours before you can actually get married). I then returned to Canada, and we applied as a “spouse living abroad.” This is not the same as you often see in movies or TV where the Canadian is already living in the USA, and they want to stay so they get married and then apply while living in the US. I voluntarily left the country!
TL;DR - We decided to get married, and met with a lawyer who encouraged us to get married sooner and apply as a spouse living abroad.  Also, turns out we didn't need a lawyer so we used Boundless.  A "spouse living abroad" is really different from what you see in movies and TV. 

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