Lessons learned from applying for a Green Card.

In 2023, I moved from Sweden to the United States to start a new chapter.

Two things were significantly challenging.

First: Flying solo with two dogs from Stockholm to Frankfurt to Los Angeles to Phoenix. (I'll never do this again)

Second: applying for a Green Card without hiring a lawyer.

I figured I could do it myself. So I watched tons of YouTube videos on the subject and read through USCIS documentation. I filled out countless forms and made sure everything was in order.

One of the more annoying parts of the process was the marriage proof documents. USCIS wants to see that your marriage is legit, so they ask for photos of you and your spouse together, with family, living your best married life. Fair enough.

The request itself is pretty simple: "Just upload some photos into a Word document and send it to us as a PDF."

But it turns out it wasn't that simple. USCIS has very specific formatting requirements, and dragging images into Word while trying to keep everything aligned and properly formatted is a total pain.

I figured I'd build a simple app to help with this process.

I built a simple Next.js app that uses IndexedDB to store photos and text locally—no server, no data collection, just you and your browser working together to create the perfect marriage proof document.