How I organized our applcation and a summary of all helpful tips I have learned

[BCgirl2012]

I have eliminated a lot of envelopes, now only 4 envelopes

1- Sponsor Forms
2- Sponsored Forms
3- Supported documents
3a- Photos

All in order as listed in checklist except for photos as there are to many and I have to put them in separate envelope.

All these in big bubble envelope and that envelop in Canada Post Large Box. Is this ok ? Or I should put all 4 envelopes directly in the box ?


Paper clipped the checklist on Sponsor Form and Sponsored Form.

Barcode is the first page inside each envelope. Should I put it outside and paper clip or I can leave it inside on top ?

We also had a rather thick package. This is what we did. I ordered the papers EXACTLY as the checklist instructs.
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/phew-finally-sent-it-off-t106067.0.html;msg1489406#msg1489406

 

[pardesifr]

We also had a rather thick package. This is what we did. I ordered the papers EXACTLY as the checklist instructs.
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/phew-finally-sent-it-off-t106067.0.html;msg1489406#msg1489406

I see yours look very clean I think I am going to take all enevelopes and put all in one pile and just put photos in a separate envelope. It will be easier for VO officer to see and work on papers, instead of taking them out of envelope each time

Thanks

 

[missmini]

We also had a rather thick package. This is what we did. I ordered the papers EXACTLY as the checklist instructs.
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/phew-finally-sent-it-off-t106067.0.html;msg1489406#msg1489406

i remember that!!!!! nice memories and discussion;

even if BCGirl didn't use any envelopes she did group everything and all looked neat; so it's easy for someone to just have an overall look and just pick the section they find more important
us we had too much hence the envelopes; plus a lot of photos
as long as it's clear for u and and for someone from outside too (a friend, family) then u r good to go

 

[pardesifr]

I followed BCGirl as it look cleaner and easier for the VO to follow the documents, instead of taking out each document from envelope.

So I made 1 pile of document + 1 envelope for photos, and all this I put it in a 1 Bubble envelope and sending it through a Canada Post Box Large size.

 

[skas13]

Hi all,

Quick question about organization.. All my pictures are loose, and I was contemplating gluing them 2 photos each on white paper and labeling them. But I did read that they don't want you to put in albums or or anything. However this wouldn't be an album per se just a means at organizing. Should I do that or just put labels on the back of each picture depicting the date, place, who is who and put it in a separate envelope to keep together? We have about 60 photos.

Another thing, I totally panicked when I saw how thick some of these envelopes are. I guess a lot of this is communications between each other? I lived with my husband in India for over 3.5 years, we've only been separated a total of 7 months. We'll be married 4 years in April. 4 of those months were visits to Canada, and the last 3 are when I moved back to Canada. As a married couple who lived together, we never exactly emailed each other, or sent fb messages, we hardly text messaged each other . We have our lease to show we did live together, and we have two kids together. Just seeing how thick some people's application is really stressing me out. I feel like I'm missing something.

 

[Rob_TO]

Hi all,

Quick question about organization.. All my pictures are loose, and I was contemplating gluing them 2 photos each on white paper and labeling them. But I did read that they don't want you to put in albums or or anything. However this wouldn't be an album per se just a means at organizing. Should I do that or just put labels on the back of each picture depicting the date, place, who is who and put it in a separate envelope to keep together? We have about 60 photos.

Another thing, I totally panicked when I saw how thick some of these envelopes are. I guess a lot of this is communications between each other? I lived with my husband in India for over 3.5 years, we've only been separated a total of 7 months. We'll be married 4 years in April. 4 of those months were visits to Canada, and the last 3 are when I moved back to Canada. As a married couple who lived together, we never exactly emailed each other, or sent fb messages, we hardly text messaged each other . We have our lease to show we did live together, and we have two kids together. Just seeing how thick some people's application is really stressing me out. I feel like I'm missing something.

What's even better for pictures is if you have digital copies, or scan them into a computer, you can just organize them into a Word document with captions underneath each one, print them out a couple per page. CIC does specify "loose" pictures if you have actual photographs, so not sure if gluing them to a paper would be proper.

As for communication evidence, we lived as common-law couple practically the entire time since we met and right up to sending the application. So we didn't include any communication evidence whatsoever (no email, no phone records, no texts, no messages etc etc), since by living together we saw each other everyday and just stated that. Communication proof is more required for long-term long distance relationships. Our app was super minimal in content.

 

[skas13]

Oh thank God. I seriously had a restless sleep last night after reading this thread and seeing how many friggin pages there were!

I already have the pictures printed (wish I had known to organize on word before doing this), so I will just label them at the back and send them loose in an envelope.

Thanks for your help. Hopefully this bad boy goes out tomorrow...after months of organizing and fetching documents it's ready! What will I do with my time now? LOL!

 

[missmini]

Oh thank God. I seriously had a restless sleep last night after reading this thread and seeing how many friggin pages there were!

I already have the pictures printed (wish I had known to organize on word before doing this), so I will just label them at the back and send them loose in an envelope.

Thanks for your help. Hopefully this bad boy goes out tomorrow...after months of organizing and fetching documents it's ready! What will I do with my time now? LOL!

we printed and labelled them in the back; it could have been easier as the previous post suggested but from what we read before, it looked that our embassy was a little older fashion - wanted to see things original, photos, etc so try to see what they say in the country specific checklist, or how others who went through the same embassy did it
don't freak out!! it's normal that if u r together all the time u won't have that stack of long distance communication - i had same issue but managed to gather things during the times we were apart long ago; but not all have that; it's ok!! remember that at the end it's the quality more imp than quantity!! good luck!!

 

[Nexus2013]

Wowie!!! That is one serious application!
I actually wondered if my application was getting too complicated so I did make some attempts to "pare down". This is what I submitted:
(all of this in one manila folder)
1) All the forms for Sponsor and Applicant (I stapled forms with more than one page less the bar code page for those that had one)
2) Supporting documents with Title page (the legal ones; birth certs, passports, tax forms, employment letter, etc)
3) Relationship history with Cover page (spread sheet with; dates, location, event, picture #, and/or airfare receipt #. Joint bank statements, joint vehicle titles, benificiary statements, statutory declarations, etc)
4) Airfare receipts with Title page (54 numbered pages referenced from spreadsheet entries)
5) Pictures with Cover page (a printed Word doc with 2 high res pictures/page. I chose 15 pics with identifiable locations or showed family and/or friends and these were referenced from spreadsheet entries, and then 11 other pics that had both of us in random places)

All 5 were held together by the industrial paper clamp thing that has the foldable handles. The relationship history cover page had a few paragraphs describing how the relationship progressed and the pictures cover page had a brief explanation of how I picked the pictures and pointed out that there were pics from every stage of the 3 year history. Each picture had a caption stating who was in it, the date and place, and the entry number on the spread sheet that it coincided with. The title pages were just that.

Hope it is thorough enough to get accepted and not so complicated to make it difficult! Good luck to all.

 

[pardesifr]

Don't staple the Forms they have to scan them and you are making there life difficult. They said it clearly not to staple anything. If you want you can use paper clip but absolutely no stapling

 

[canadiangirl78]

Nowhere does it say no staples. It's easy to scan stapled documents.

 

[parker24]

Nowhere does it say no staples. It's easy to scan stapled documents.

Search do not staple on CIC, there's plenty of places that say do not staple.

 

[Shayeste]

When I read how you guys arranged your documents I wonder why they gave my hubby a visa
I thought our application was REALLY organized. But Compared to what you did ours is like a mess

Well, it turned out all good anyway....
But I wish I have seen this forum and this post before I sent my application

 

[Shayeste]

When I read how you guys arranged your documents I wonder why they gave my hubby a visa
I thought our application was REALLY organized. But Compared to what you did ours is like a mess

Well, it turned out all good anyway....
But I wish I have seen this forum and this post before I sent my application

I also did staple all the forms!

 

[canadiangirl78]

Search do not staple on CIC, there's plenty of places that say do not staple.

Nowhere in the family class instructions or checklists does it say no staples. And many people have stapled without a problem. It's not a big deal.