Spent weeks refreshing for an appointment and now I have one. Terrified of turning up and being turned away for a missing form. What do you wish you'd brought / known walking into the appointment?
Brought physical copies of literally everything, including things marked optional. Better safe than turned away over one missing form.
Good moment to flag: what you must bring to the appointment, the exact photo/fee/form specs, and what happens after submission all vary by consulate and visa type and do change. Confirm the current checklist for your specific appointment via the Visa section of your guide or the official source before you go — turning up missing one item can cost you the slot you waited months for.
The fear of being turned away over one missing form is so real, good luck at your appointment.
Appointment for our residence card here, several months ago now. Everything on the checklist, twice, and they still asked for a document that wasn't on it. The clerk let us email it the same afternoon. My advice would be to take anything that might plausibly be relevant, even if it isn't listed, and to be very nice to the clerk.
Mine is in October. Bookmarking this for the week before.
The part I wish I had known: they checked that every document was recent, not only that it existed. My bank statement was from the week before, and they asked for one printed within the last few days. Print the time-sensitive documents as late as possible, and bring copies of everything as well as the originals.
Printing as late as possible, yes. I learned that one the expensive way.
Ours was for biometrics before the move. Useful tip from the staff: arrive early, because they sometimes take people out of order if the queue is short.
Bring a pen, water and something to read. The wait was longer than the appointment.
At the prefecture, the thing that helped most was organising the documents in the exact order of their checklist, with coloured tabs. It sounds excessive, but the woman helping me visibly relaxed when she saw it and the whole appointment took fifteen minutes. The people in front of me with loose papers were still there when I left.