Application packaging and proof of relationship

[rotato]

Hello!

My wife and I are currently preparing our PR application for my wife to come to Canada and I have a couple questions!

• 
  How did you organize all your documents?
  There's a lot of documents to send so I'm curious what the best way to organize might be. I've seen examples of people just clipping them all together as well as people buying folders and making little binder-like packages for their application. I'm just worried going too far in either direction will have some consequences.
  
  
• 
  Proof of relationship; how many photos?
  How many photos should we send? We were thinking of writing the dates and events on the back or taping them to a piece of paper and writing underneath.
  
  
• 
  Proof of relationship; letter explaining relationship?
  My wife and I are planning on writing a letter explaining how we met, started dating, got married, etc. to help prove our relationship. I was just wondering though, how long should it be? We can write pages and pages of details or give a simple 1 page overview. I was thinking 2-3 pages would be appropriate.
  
  
• 
  Proof of relationship; instant-messaging proof?
  Most of our contact when we were long distance was via a phone messenger. We've got backups of all the chats, but they're just in a plain-text text file. No screenshots or anything. Would it be fine to basically just include a transcript-style document showing snippets of conversation? How much should we include?
  
  

Thanks for all your help!

 

[truesmile]

We used three sub-envelopes all sent in one bigger envelope. Those three envelopes contained, a) my application to sponsor, b) her application for PR, and c) all relationship evidence. They say no staples, no paper-clips should be included.

We sent in about 60 photos with writing on the back of some, all loose-leaf, and one or two greeting cards we had exchanged.

Our relationship story was 3 sentences long and it fit in the box on the form where it was asked for.

We submitted no chat, Skype, or other instant-messaging type of evidence.

It really depends on the processing VO combined with how strong you feel your application is. With a difficult VO such as Singapore you send everything you have. However, with Manila as in our case we were able to take a minimalist attitude towards our submission.

 

[ayrazar]

We used three envelopes submitted together as well, exactly as truesmile said

We sent in 25 photos, organised into a word file with captions

Our relationship story was a page and a bit and we submitted it on a separate sheet of paper, and on that question on the sponsorship questionnaire we wrote "See attached"

We submitted a skype log just showing calls with any text blacked out, and an explanation of what all the black boxes were. As far as I'm concerned what we actually SAID to each other is not CIC's business, but that's the libertarian in me.

 

[rotato]

We used three sub-envelopes all sent in one bigger envelope. Those three envelopes contained, a) my application to sponsor, b) her application for PR, and c) all relationship evidence. They say no staples, no paper-clips should be included.

We sent in about 60 photos with writing on the back of some, all loose-leaf, and one or two greeting cards we had exchanged.

Our relationship story was 3 sentences long and it fit in the box on the form where it was asked for.

We submitted no chat, Skype, or other instant-messaging type of evidence.

It really depends on the processing VO combined with how strong you feel your application is. With a difficult VO such as Singapore you send everything you have. However, with Manila as in our case we were able to take a minimalist attitude towards our submission.

Thank you for sharing your experience! We're submitting from Korea but Korean applications go to the Manilla office. So maybe we'll have a similar experience.

I'm a little surprised about not sending any other evidence though. I remember specifically seeing emails, letters, phone records, etc. being asked for in one of the documents. I suppose that becomes less important when the person your sponsoring is married to you as opposed to common-law. It's a bit easier to prove that way.

So you didn't submit any proof of communication or visiting or anything, aside from the photos?

 

[rotato]

We used three envelopes submitted together as well, exactly as truesmile said

We sent in 25 photos, organised into a word file with captions

Our relationship story was a page and a bit and we submitted it on a separate sheet of paper, and on that question on the sponsorship questionnaire we wrote "See attached"

We submitted a skype log just showing calls with any text blacked out, and an explanation of what all the black boxes were. As far as I'm concerned what we actually SAID to each other is not CIC's business, but that's the libertarian in me.

Great, I'm glad you read about your experience too. Maybe we'll look at doing the three envelope thing too. It seems staples and even paper clips aren't wanted. Did you also not use staples or paper-clips?

So for your photos you basically put them in a word document and then printed out the document, instead of printing out photos on photo-paper? I guess that would also be a good way of doing things. It would be much more organized in my opinion.

I agree with your opinion on the content of our talks. I don't really want to submit a bunch of our conversations either. Just out of curiosity, did you submit a screenshot of your Skype log or just copied and pasted into a word document? My main concern is most of our communication is over a smartphone instant messaging app. We have backups, but they're all in plain-text format and I don't think call information is included in the backup text.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[MilesAway]

Some people don't submit chat logs. I did not, but I showed a few pictures of my inbox, showing the total numbers of e-mails we exchanged. This is more important if you don't live together. If the couple lives together, then the proof of communication is not really needed, since you would see each other every day.
I only included the Skype log for the times when I was away for work or immigration issues.

 

[rotato]

Some people don't submit chat logs. I did not, but I showed a few pictures of my inbox, showing the total numbers of e-mails we exchanged. This is more important if you don't live together. If the couple lives together, then the proof of communication is not really needed, since you would see each other every day.
I only included the Skype log for the times when I was away for work or immigration issues.

That's a good point and I'm glad to hear it. I was actually thinking of doing the same thing. I have tens of emails that are just chat log backups. Maybe we'll do something similar to what you did. Maybe with a single screenshot of one of the chat log's, just so they can see what's in each email.

I guess the problem is that a big portion of our relationship before we got married was long-distance, so I'm thinking more about communication proof.

Thanks again!

 

[haseeb.virk]

That's a good point and I'm glad to hear it. I was actually thinking of doing the same thing. I have tens of emails that are just chat log backups. Maybe we'll do something similar to what you did. Maybe with a single screenshot of one of the chat log's, just so they can see what's in each email.

I guess the problem is that a big portion of our relationship before we got married was long-distance, so I'm thinking more about communication proof.

Thanks again!

Hi there!

I was in a pretty similar situation a few months back. I was asked by my Visa Office (London) to give further proofs for continued relationship. We were lucky that me and my wife had traveled together during my holidays in the US a few months back, so I had ample pictures, proofs (Tickets, Hotel booking etc) that I provided. More important though were the logs of communication that we had had over the year or so since we had been married. We basically chatted through WhatsApp, and since WhatsApp provides you with an option to download the logs of a particular chat, I simply printed off all the chat logs that we had (75 pages for a year). Now, you can always take out information that you think is personal in nature, but I guess the more the communication logs/proof you have the better it is!

Hope it helps, and best of luck!

 

[truesmile]

Thank you for sharing your experience! We're submitting from Korea but Korean applications go to the Manilla office. So maybe we'll have a similar experience.

I'm a little surprised about not sending any other evidence though. I remember specifically seeing emails, letters, phone records, etc. being asked for in one of the documents. I suppose that becomes less important when the person your sponsoring is married to you as opposed to common-law. It's a bit easier to prove that way.

So you didn't submit any proof of communication or visiting or anything, aside from the photos?

We included photos from our visits and said that's what they were, so you could say we included circumstantial evidence. However, we did not include plane tickets nor boarding passes or anything like that.

 

[jr4210]

They say no staples, no paper-clips should be included.

Can someone elaborate on this? I don't recall seeing it in the instructions.

Not stapling papers makes everything quite messy, so did others basically put groups of papers together? Say an application had 7 pages to it, you just put them one after the other and then the next application comes after?

 

[rotato]

Hi there!

I was in a pretty similar situation a few months back. I was asked by my Visa Office (London) to give further proofs for continued relationship. We were lucky that me and my wife had traveled together during my holidays in the US a few months back, so I had ample pictures, proofs (Tickets, Hotel booking etc) that I provided. More important though were the logs of communication that we had had over the year or so since we had been married. We basically chatted through WhatsApp, and since WhatsApp provides you with an option to download the logs of a particular chat, I simply printed off all the chat logs that we had (75 pages for a year). Now, you can always take out information that you think is personal in nature, but I guess the more the communication logs/proof you have the better it is!

Hope it helps, and best of luck!

I see. Maybe we should include some logs of our messages. We used a very similar app to WhatsApp for most of our communication. So we could always print some logs off for proof. I suppose we could just submit without complete communication and hand it over if they contact us back asking for more proof. Still, we'll have to sort through it. We'd rather get it right the first time.

 

[MilesAway]

What a lot of people have done is include a few samples of the chats, such as one page per month. Indicate in the application that you have included a sample, but you are willing to send them in if required. I think I wrote something like that. I did not include any of the messages that we sent to each other, since they are personal. I did tell CIC that I would happily send them the 9000 emails and 50,000 pages (I have no idea of the number, but it was a big number) of MSN messenger if that was required. They did not require that.

 

[jr4210]

Does anyone know about the staple/paperclip situation?

 

[haseeb.virk]

I see. Maybe we should include some logs of our messages. We used a very similar app to WhatsApp for most of our communication. So we could always print some logs off for proof. I suppose we could just submit without complete communication and hand it over if they contact us back asking for more proof. Still, we'll have to sort through it. We'd rather get it right the first time.

The idea is to make sure that they get as much information about the continued nature of the relationship. The communication logs should logically suffice for this! =) By going through them, you should be able to take out information that is rather personal in nature, I know I took some stuff out!

But as you rightly said, its better if you can get it right the first time! This should save a lot of time in the overall process!

Best of Luck!

 

[rotato]

What a lot of people have done is include a few samples of the chats, such as one page per month. Indicate in the application that you have included a sample, but you are willing to send them in if required. I think I wrote something like that. I did not include any of the messages that we sent to each other, since they are personal. I did tell CIC that I would happily send them the 9000 emails and 50,000 pages (I have no idea of the number, but it was a big number) of MSN messenger if that was required. They did not require that.

I like that idea, maybe we'll do that. We definitely can't include all the logs as that's over 4 years worth! But a sample from each month seems reasonable to show continued communication and a small note saying we'll provide more if they ask. Thanks for the tip!

Thank you for the tips everyone!