Hello to all!
I came over to the UK on a fiance visa in June. On July 28th, we went to Birmingham to apply for an in person FLR (M) application and it was actually very pleasant! We were so nervous because we have heard/read all of these horror stories regarding Immigration Officers (no offense to those who are) and the whole process in general. We had to call and make an appointment 6 weeks in advance. There were several people walking into reception, trying to get an appointment and had to be told to call the number. When we got there, we went through 'security', which was basically just checking your handbag and walking through a metal detector.
To be honest, the hardest thing about the whole day was waiting and waiting and waiting. When they called our number, our Immigration Officer only asked to see 4 documents of the hundreds that we brought (just in case). He asked for our marriage certificate, passports, my British husband's bank statements, and application form.
My husband gave him his most recent 6 statements and he only looked at the first couple...one of which was a bank printout of his most recent transactions. He didn't even ask to see any of mine.
He asked me what my intentions where in the UK and I said 'to work, once I gain permission to do so' and he said 'well, as of today, you have permission to work'. He was very nice and gave lots of advice on what rights I would have within the UK.
After that, I went through biometrics which took all of 5 minutes. They then informed us that it would take about an hour for things to process and for us to feel free to grab a bite to eat (we had to pick up our passports and marriage certificate still). We came back in an hour, got our documents, and that was it. The whole process took roughly 4 hours.
Payment was £665 made in the booth next the counter where we showed our documents to the Immigration Officer.
Everyone there seemed really nice and they didn't seem intimidating or like an ogre.
Five days later I received an ID card in the mail. It looks awesome...I'm not sure if it's because of all of the holograms or because I worked so hard to get it!
SLE
