Right, I met my wife in the US when she was here on a non-immigrant student visa. We actually married in the US before the end of her CPT/OPT quota. After that, I became an expat when we both relocated back to her original country.

After about 4 years there, I relocated back to start a new job, arrange housing, etc. We started the USCIS petition in her country during one of my visits. She eventually finished the whole process and got her immigrant visa to come back and join me.

It worked out smoothly for us, but mostly because we understood the general process timeline and pipelined it to coincide with other professional and personal life factors that drove things. We were going to be separated for a bit anyway, because I wanted to chase the new job back in the US while she still had obligations to wrap up overseas.