American who wants to move to Canada to be with boyfriend!

[missmegan]

Hey there! I'm an American and I went through the same dilemma. My now husband is from Burlington ON and I've from just south of Buffalo NY. Moved out to Calgary in August because my boyfriend was moving there for law school. I've never been on so many interviews and had job offers given and then taken away because the LMIA process is ridiculous. I looked into going to school....literally every option just to stay out there. We were both so frustrated, especially when you want to come live in Canada and you have an education and work skills. But unless you're a doctor or engineer, no one's going to pay those LMIA fees. And we're from the states, I don't know why it has to be so difficult to move across the border.

We finally decided that the only realistic option for us was to get married so that's what we did. We submitted our application end of January, he's been approved as a sponsor and now we're just waiting for my portion of the application to be approved. If you choose to go this route, the paperwork is lengthy and should not be taken lightly. We we very detailed and provided pictures of family vacations, dates, weddings, etc. You also need to be fingerprinted for an FBI background check and have a medical exam done. The things we do for love, right? haha.

Also, we applied outland because inland was a waaaay longer wait time. Don't apply inland unless you're okay with not going home for a year.

It's been a long couple of months, but we're almost at the end and it will be well worth it!
I hope this helps and hopefully you can move to Canada soon!

Good luck!!

 

[lleahdoll]

Oh, weird!!! You learn something every day, thank you for correcting me! It must be a British Columbia thing. Or maybe Quebec is the only province that does courthouse weddings? I know Alberta doesn't either, you have to pay a marriage comissioner ;o

Yeah I'm not sure. I never heard of someone not being allowed so it may just be a BC thing?

 

[BeShoo]

Okay, so once you become a Permanent Resident, you don't have to get a work visa?

As a permanent resident, you are authorized to live and work in the country permanently. You may be more familiar with permanent resident visas in the United States, which are commonly called "green cards." Aside from PR, temporary foreign worker permits do exist, also.

I have a few friends who did a small courthouse one at first just to be married and then had bigger ones a few years later.

You just have to be careful if you go that route that you can show that's it's not just a "marriage of convenience" which is not considered to be a genuine marriage under Canadian immigration law. If there are no or few guests, no family in attendance, no reception or honeymoon afterwards, or whatever traditions are common in the place where you are married, you need to be able to explain why that is the case, because it will look somewhat suspicious. You need to convince the immigration officer that the marriage was not entered into primarily for immigration purposes, because it's not valid for immigration if it was.

Hard evidence that your relationship has been developing over time, ultimately leading to marriage, is helpful in this regard. It also helps that you're from the U.S., which is economically and culturally similar to Canada. U.S. citizens don't have as much to gain moving to Canada as citizens of some other countries.

They will want to see pictures from the wedding ceremony showing the guests that were in attendance and pictures from any reception and/or honeymoon that followed. If important guests like your parents were not in attendance, you need to have an explanation, and it can't be "because this isn't a real wedding." Haha.

 

[BeShoo]

Canada actually doesn't do courthouse weddings!

Actually, "Canada" doesn't do weddings at all. Weddings are under provincial jurisdiction, so they may vary between provinces. I know that in Ottawa, they have a very nice room in the city hall where they do weddings. I attended my friends' wedding there. A woman who apparently works for the city officiated.

I considered "eloping" before going the common law route. In Ontario, marriage licenses are issued by each city, county, regional municipality, etc. and they are valid anywhere in the province. Each jurisdiction sets their own fees. I did a little shopping around (barely having money for a license, let alone a "nice" wedding), and found that the cheapest license was about half the price of the most expensive one! Some of the more rural places don't have someone to issue licenses more than one day a week, so that's a little inconvenient, but I was surprised at how much things vary. I do know that Toronto city hall also has a wedding "chapel" (probably not the right word) within it.

 

[Amalthea]

Actually, "Canada" doesn't do weddings at all. Weddings are under provincial jurisdiction, so they may vary between provinces. I know that in Ottawa, they have a very nice room in the city hall where they do weddings. I attended my friends' wedding there. A woman who apparently works for the city officiated.

I considered "eloping" before going the common law route. In Ontario, marriage licenses are issued by each city, county, regional municipality, etc. and they are valid anywhere in the province. Each jurisdiction sets their own fees. I did a little shopping around (barely having money for a license, let alone a "nice" wedding), and found that the cheapest license was about half the price of the most expensive one! Some of the more rural places don't have someone to issue licenses more than one day a week, so that's a little inconvenient, but I was surprised at how much things vary. I do know that Toronto city hall also has a wedding "chapel" (probably not the right word) within it.

Gotcha! Thank you for clarifying. Yeah in BC there isn't like a hall or a courthouse you can go to to have someone marry you. You can get your marriage license (we got ours from an insurance company?) and then 24 hrs we could get married! but instead of paying a marriage commissioner to come to our apartment or a park or something to marry us, we got married in her gorgeous home on the beach. She said she had married almost 5,000 couples there over the years.

 

[saraao]

Yeah, as long as you don't show up with a Uhaul and just say that you're VISITING! Exactly. Your Certificate of Permanent Resident is usually enough to show you can work, and then after you land you will get your SIN# and a Permanent Resident Card in the mail. No work visa! I haven't gotten to this part yet but it's my understanding Permanent Residents are granted all the same rights as citizens except you can't vote and you can't get a Canadian Passport. Later on, you can apply for citizenship after X amount of years to qualify (don't remember off the top of my head).

Canada actually doesn't do courthouse weddings! You have to be married by a marriage commissioner, ours was kind enough to let us to get married in her beautiful home as had thousands of couples before us She was lovely! We then walked to the beach and took pictures, and celebrated later on. We called it a "planned elopement"! We were featured by Offbeat Bride, you can see more here http://offbeatbride.com/2014/08/vancouver-elopement

There is a lot about landing and exporting/importing your car on the Ottawa and US Outland threads. IMO cars are wayyyy more expensive up in Canada, absolutely worth it to bring yours up instead of buying a new one! It's not that difficult to export and then import, and it's free through AESDirect, unless you chose to pay a broker. My car is exempt from some registration thing in Canada because it's older than 15 years. Still looking into it. I think it's just air quality/emissions testing, but we already do that in Oregon.

What if i bring a U-Haul and say i'm just a heavy packer? haha

What a sweet wedding! did you have to get married both in Canada & the US? Or just 1 was enough?

i heard it was super expensive to import a car but maybe what I heard was inaccurate. I'll look more into it but i feel like that's probably one of the least of my worries lol.

How did you guys meet? You're lucky that you lived so close to each other! I mean really ANY distance sucks but me & my boyfriend are like about 2500 miles away...for me to go there, I can almost never find a direct flight so it usually takes about 15 hours including the 3 hr time zone difference.

 

[Amalthea]

Do not show up with a uhaul. You need to have significant ties to the us to convince the CBSA officer that you are not going to live in Canada. Like one or two suitcases yknow? Job, leases, us bank ACCTS etc..

Its free to export a car through AESdirect.. You are probably thinking of people who pay for brokers instead of doing it themselves, or Canadian citizens who buy cars in the US and import them, at which point you pay tax.

Marriages are recognized internationally, so it doesn't matter which country you get married in, but you certainly can't get married twice, that would be illegal.

We met by chance on WoW 5 yrs ago then became friends on FB he was my best friend for years and then we fell in love! Yes, certainly grateful that we're both from Cascadia. I couldn't live anywhere else, speaking from experience but, it is a 15hr drive one way! Certainly always felt like marathon

 

[saraao]

Hey there! I'm an American and I went through the same dilemma. My now husband is from Burlington ON and I've from just south of Buffalo NY. Moved out to Calgary in August because my boyfriend was moving there for law school. I've never been on so many interviews and had job offers given and then taken away because the LMIA process is ridiculous. I looked into going to school....literally every option just to stay out there. We were both so frustrated, especially when you want to come live in Canada and you have an education and work skills. But unless you're a doctor or engineer, no one's going to pay those LMIA fees. And we're from the states, I don't know why it has to be so difficult to move across the border.

We finally decided that the only realistic option for us was to get married so that's what we did. We submitted our application end of January, he's been approved as a sponsor and now we're just waiting for my portion of the application to be approved. If you choose to go this route, the paperwork is lengthy and should not be taken lightly. We we very detailed and provided pictures of family vacations, dates, weddings, etc. You also need to be fingerprinted for an FBI background check and have a medical exam done. The things we do for love, right? haha.

Also, we applied outland because inland was a waaaay longer wait time. Don't apply inland unless you're okay with not going home for a year.

It's been a long couple of months, but we're almost at the end and it will be well worth it!
I hope this helps and hopefully you can move to Canada soon!

Good luck!!

Omg right, idk how anyone can possibly get hired with how difficult they make it. I feel your pain, it is THE most frustrating thing to be a contributing, responsible citizen who always pays bills/taxes/whatever, who is also pretty well-educated and not be able to get a job. I can also see the employer's side though because who would want to pay all those fees and wait so long just to hire someone. Especially for Americans because we are so darn close to Canada ugh.

How long were you guys together before you made the decision to get married? And how long did it take for him to be approved as a sponsor? Are you able to submit evidence from like, Facebook? Like how your 'life events' document how long you've been together?

Hopefully it doesn't take too long for you!!

 

[lleahdoll]

Omg right, idk how anyone can possibly get hired with how difficult they make it. I feel your pain, it is THE most frustrating thing to be a contributing, responsible citizen who always pays bills/taxes/whatever, who is also pretty well-educated and not be able to get a job. I can also see the employer's side though because who would want to pay all those fees and wait so long just to hire someone. Especially for Americans because we are so darn close to Canada ugh.

How long were you guys together before you made the decision to get married? And how long did it take for him to be approved as a sponsor? Are you able to submit evidence from like, Facebook? Like how your 'life events' document how long you've been together?

Hopefully it doesn't take too long for you!!

Hey saraao! I know this was posed to someone else but I'd like to give some input!

My husband and I knew each other a year before we married. He proposed a little before a year of us knowing each other.
We submitted Facebook messages. I didn't print that many bc we have over 35,000. Which I hope they see on the print out I did. I just put ones from the first couple months showing us getting to know each other. To show our continuing relationship I have about 20+ photos in a timeline. We were dating 4 months when I visited him the first time and I basically have been here since... not including when I went back to the states to "reset" my visitation.
Also, we did include screen shots of when we put our relationship, engagement, and marriage on facebook. To show friends "liked" it and that it was a public relationship.
Also showed how we adopted two kitties together
Hope that helps!