Ceremony Extention

[jmdr951]

Good Evening All,

I am currently seeking advice to regarding my ceremony for my British Citizenship. I applied 12th October using the NCS in Manchester and already this was approved 3 weeks later (5th November). All is well until I contacted the Leeds City Council to book my ceremony and they said that they can only fit me in 3rd January 2019. The problem is that I am flying to my home country 23rd January - 16th Feb. Initially, I assumed that I would not hear from the Home Office after 2-3 months so I planned to go using my current passport. The problem is that once attending the ceremony on 3rd January I will loose my natural born citizenship. This means that I will need to apply for a British passport which could take up to 6 weeks meaning that I will miss my flight.

Could someone give me an advice how to get round this? My initial thought is to go and do a private ceremony and hope they can give me an earlier date (but the lady I spoke to on the phone was not confident that they can give me an earlier date).

or... ask the Home Office to extend my ceremony for another 1 month which means that I can do it after my visit back home on 16th Feb 2019.

Preferably, I would not want to reschedule my flight as this is the only time I can book a holiday and see my family member who is terminally ill.

Thanks and your advice would be very much appreciated.