My fiancee has a visit visa granted for 6 months and will be coming over to UK at end of May. Obviously our thoughts now are towards what will be required to get a marriage visa and how easy is it for us to make that application whilst in the UK on the visit visa? Any advice on this very much appreciated.
You can't switch from visit visa to a fiance visa. Your girlfriend will have to go back to the Philippines.
So are you saying that it is not possible to make a fresh application for a fiance visa from within the UK?
No its not possible. She will have to go back to the Philippines to apply for a fiance visa. A lot of us here were on visit visa before but we all went back to the Philippines to apply for fiance visa as stated in the rule.
After we got engaged last year in the UK we called the registry office to inquire about proof of intention to marry for the fiancee visa. They thought we were inquiring about getting married without the fiancee visa so they told us about having to go through interviews and immigration. You could inquire at your registry office yourself but it seems much more difficult to go through that route. We wanted to do things properly so I came back and got the fiancee visa in the Philippines which was fairly quick and painless as I didn't have to go through an interview. Speaking of interviews, the last time I flew over to England I got grilled by the immigration officer upon arrival who kept insisting I was there to marry my boyfriend- which we had no plans of doing, I didn't even know he was planning to propose on that trip. He asked if we were engaged and ordered me to show him my hands to prove I didn't have an engagement ring. He was threatening to send me back but I stood my ground and I could look him in the eye because I knew I had nothing to hide. It was still a jarring experience and I realized afterwards that I should have been more prepared for the questions, after doing a lot of traveling I had gotten complacent as I usually don't get roasted by immigration officials. She needs to tell them she's there to visit you and she needs to know details about you like how much you make, your job, etc along with being able to answer the questions about marriage. Let's hope your fiancee doesn't go through that but it's always better to be ready. Best of luck with everything!
