I am a single father living with his daughter in Florida. My girlfriend is a single mother living with her daughter in New York. We have decided to get married. The best situation is for her and her daughter (4 yrs old) to move here. I own a successful company, own a 3 bedroom home in a good neighborhood with good schools. We dated for a significant amount of time in our early twenties (we're both 39 now) but were not ready to settle down and the relationship ended. She was never married to her daughters father, he in fact did not want to have the child when they found she was pregnant. However they do have a joint custody agreement and the child lives with her. My girlfriend can easily find work here and if she would like to stay home with her daughter as opposed to working, that is an option. We are completely aware we need to petition the court for permission to relocate her to Florida. The question is this: We do not want to wait to get married and we plan to have another child together. So the concern is whether being married before petitioning the court would be a detriment or an attribute, and the same for trying to have another child. Would it be bad or good to be married and expecting when asking for the ability to move her and her child here? The childs father is single, living unmarried with a girlfriend, paying child support. We can show the quality of schooling, quality of housing, benefits of having a family atmosphere and can make concessions pertaining to child support. We also have heard that establishing a weblink (video feed) daily time between daughter and father can be beneficial and are able to do so. again the concern is that if we petition without the permanency of a marriage it may bring down our case or that with the marriage it may be misconstrued as attempting to influence the court. Looking for some solid input from those familiar with New York family law. Thanks in advance.