A proposal involving someone settled abroad tends to move through the same stages as any other, with one difference: the two families rarely have the informal channels — a common relative, a neighbour, someone from the same town — that usually fill in the gaps. Everything has to be asked directly. It is worth asking early.
Say where you actually are
Set your country honestly on the profile — the site marks a profile as NRI when the country is not India, and families filter on it in both directions. Some are looking specifically for a match settled abroad; others would rather not have their daughter or son ten time zones away. Neither preference needs justifying, and both are wasted effort if the profile is vague.
The questions worth asking in the first weeks
- Where will you live after the wedding, and is that settled or assumed? This is the question most often left until it is awkward.
- What is the immigration position for a spouse — what is possible, how long it usually takes, and what it costs? Ask what the person actually knows rather than what they have heard.
- Can the spouse work there, and from when? For many people this is the single biggest change, and it is better discussed than discovered.
- How often are visits home realistic — and what happens if a parent falls ill?
- Where would the wedding be held, and who is expected to travel?
None of these have right answers. They only have answers the two families have or have not talked about.
Verify across a border, deliberately
Where you can, involve a relative who lives in the same country and can meet in person. That single visit resolves more than a month of calls.
Getting the paperwork right
Registering a marriage, and whatever a spouse needs afterwards to live and work in another country, is genuinely technical and depends on both countries and on your circumstances. We are not able to advise on it, and you should be wary of anyone in a matrimonial conversation who offers to. Speak to the relevant consulate and to a lawyer who does this work — before the wedding date is fixed, not after.