on line visa application

hello, i have some questions re: the online visa application. i'm in the states, my fiance is in the uk, and we are applying for the fiance visa and planning to get married in italy on december 6 of this year.
I'm wondering what the point of the online application is? Since I still have to mail in the documentation, would it not be easier to just mail it direct to the Consulate in New York?
If anyone could help out with this, I'd appreciate it.

hey it may be easier, unfortuantely I have seen no way around it sorry.  Food luck though!!

Jeez I meant good luck sorry haha

thank you, in fact i just doublechecked and it said on the Visa4 Uk site that if you are in the US you must apply on line.
i'll take any kind of luck i can get, food or otherwise!

It was my understanding that you "apply online" so that your details are collected, but you still have to physically PRINT your application to send to the consulate. I didn't think they actually get your online details straightaway.

Plus, there is a benefit to printing it as you can make a correction (in writing on the form) should you make a small mistake. (I mistakenly typed my dad's year of birth as 1949 when it should have read 1947.)

Also, I just noticed...if you're getting married in Italy, surely a fiance visa for the UK doesn't make much sense. When you are married in Italy, you will not be able to enter or re-enter the UK on your fiance visa as you will no longer be a fiance at that point...you will be a spouse and therefore entering the UK "falsely" as a fiance. You will then need a spouse visa to enter the UK once you are married.

It was my understanding that you "apply online" so that your details are collected, but you still have to physically PRINT your application to send to the consulate. I didn't think they actually get your online details straightaway.

No, they get them right away...  It is just a) an easy way to match the information to the online and b) a failsafe in case there is something wrong with the online, but if everything goes ok, they tend to look just at the online.

They will look at the paper version as well...so where there are bugs in the programme, if you need to amend the paper version by hand, do so.


Vicky

No, they get them right away...  It is just a) an easy way to match the information to the online and b) a failsafe in case there is something wrong with the online, but if everything goes ok, they tend to look just at the online.

I did wonder this as well, but assumed they concentrated moreso on the printout. It makes perfect sense though I guess, as Vicky said, to look at both. I'd be curious to see what some people try to get away with.

They will look at the paper version as well...so where there are bugs in the programme, if you need to amend the paper version by hand, do so.


Vicky

Is there a thread that these bugs can be reported on?  I just discovered a few today...

Bugs like not enough space for the countries you've visited for the past 10 years box? Some of us have, um, seen the world, despite what they think of Americans.