Do You Take This Immigrant?

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
Published: June 11, 2010

THE retired mechanic from Michigan looked shell-shocked beside his bride, a classical pianist from Moscow who clutched the printed e-mail exchanges of their Internet romance. Young newlyweds from Long Island, still recovering from their reception for 600 guests the previous weekend, faltered as their lawyer quizzed them on the details of their City Hall ceremony four months before. A Manhattan woman bickered with her Turkish spouse about the kinds of questions they had been warned to expect.

RAMON EMILIO DIAZ & MIGUELINA MONTALVO DIAZ She: “ ‘If we get approved, I will go to meet his kids.â€