Immigration and return tickets.

[missyspotty]

Hi everyone, I can't find this question answered anywhere so here goes...sorry if it gets a bit confusing.

I am a British citizen, currently in the UK. My fiance is dual (Canadian/US) and is coming over to stay purely as a visitor prior to us getting married in the US in August. We plan to settle in the US, not Britain and will likely hang out in Canada whilst my paperwork is being processed.
Is there any chance he would be allowed in to Britain on a one way ticket?
The reason for this is simply that we don't want to waste $250 extra on a return ticket that will only be used one way. Well, we COULD use it but it would mean travelling from London to Miami via Ottawa when we go out for our wedding, the extra Ottawa-Miami fare adds yet another $250 as well as an extra 2000 miles and all the hassles. We also really want to travel together so it would mean me too going on this weird itinerary. And it'll be even more annoying if we end up in Canada after our wedding which is pretty much what we are planning!!
The only other option seems to be to come in on a one way Ottawa-London and have a separate ticket London-Miami already purchased but that is even more expensive.
As we plan on being together from now on, even if we have to "country hop," it would be so much easier if we could just have matching travel plans as it's so complicated when your journeys originate in different countries, even if you use the same company you have to use the separate local versions of the website and risk not being on the same flight.
If anyone has any experience of this or can offer any advice it'd be much appreciated. I am guessing the answer is he will have to get a return, it just bugs me that something that should be so simple never is
Also, if anyone has any tips on what to say or not to say on entry that'd be good. I am ex-airline and know what a difficult bunch immigration can be...'nuff said LOL.
Thanks guys.

[Benedict McAmbrose]

Hi missyspotty. I'm not here to advise, I'm afraid, but ask pretty much the same question. My fiancee is Canadian, I'm British and she came over to stay with me a few months ago for a long stay (over a month). She had a return ticket, and she had no difficulty being allowed through border control.

We get in Canada next week. Only in the last 24 hours have we found out that we cannot get a full marriage certificate until the mariage is fully registered---and this is going to take 10 weeks! We're gutted. We had been told we could get one within 5 days---no one mentioned that this was only AFTER the marriage was registered. Since it looks as our spousal visa application will fail without the full marriage certficate, we now have to face the prospect of my new wife staying in Canada for the ten weeks it takes to get the certificate plus the time it takes to process the visa application once we can submit it. That's at least three months apart straight after our wedding, when we've already spend most of the time since we were engaged apart too.

My question is: Can my wife fly back with me as a visitor whilst our marriage is being registered by Ontario (before our visa is submitted)? We were told months ago when we had diferent plans that she might or might not be admitted, depending on the whim of the immigration officer in Glasgow on the day. This seems horribly arbitrary and unfair. Can anyone advice?