US immigration question: best way to do it

(I'm a US citizen, now in US but had lived on the mainland for several years who looked into this in detail.)

K-1 visa is much easier than K-3 (immigrant). However, there are other considerations. If your girlfriend is German, she will need to apply for the K-1 in Germany (citizenship country). It takes 3 to 4 months for you to apply once you are in the US, then maybe 4 to 8 months for her to get the necessary paperwork done and get the visa, then she goes to the US and you have 89 days to get married. If, on the other hand, you marry her in HK (not all that hard), you'll now need to apply for an immigrant visa and that could take several years, and would also have to be done in Germany (though you might be able to get her a 90-day visitor's visa sometime during the several year wait). In either case, she'd have to return to Germany (at some point) to get the visa. As for lawyers, I don't know about HK, but you can readily find one in NY (cost is around 1000 USD for support, though if you follow the procedure you don't really need a lawyer). Here's a website with comprehensive information: http://www.visajourney.com/faq/k1faq.htm