Romance-in-Paris said:
Netkid, thanks for sharing your experience! This gives hope to all of us waiters. Would you mind sharing a bit of your relationship story? (Sorry if you've already done so without me seeing it.) For instance are you married or common-law, for how long, what proof you submitted?
Not a problem. My wife and I met online and were married earlier this year. We started communicating in the summer of 2013. We met in person on 2 separate occasions before our wedding, although we talked/communicated all day every day since the summer. This fact was a concern for me, having read a lot of threads and posts about not meeting enough before asking for sponsorship, however, we made it very clear in our write-up how we progressed from an online connection to being married. We also were explicit in explaining our family life and cultural backgrounds, so that the officers didn't stereotype us (i.e. arranged marriage, didn't follow a 'traditional' path, etc).
We attached
- boarding passes
- hotel receipts/ receipts of events, purchases of gifts / credit card statements
- joint bank info
- emails between us, us and each other's families
- photos of us, us with each other's families, friends, wedding photos (40-50 and each one was dated to the exact date, who was in it, and where)
- communication logs: skype, google, etc.
- wedding information, wedding website link
- a writeup explaining our 'story' /timeline; integrated our various documentation into this document
I added some additional things, for example, I shared our wedding invitation / RSVP list, and then a corresponding wedding gift list, and our new joint bank information - and the monetary gifts and bank info matched up.
I hope this is of use to someone - even if one person can benefit, it's worth it. I certainly owe a LOT to these forums and the quality people who contribute to threads.