I would not recommend sending in an application without wedding pictures. At the worst, try to get a disposable camera.
There's tons of different items you can put into your application for proof of relationship (genuine relationship). Tons and tons! I'll tell you what I put and some things others have used.
- Skype call history (video chat)
- Yahoo Instant Messager chat archive and a sample of one conversation per month (still 70 pages long!)
- Joint cell phone
- Joint bank account
- receipts from two trips to Kelowna, B. C.
- receipt from a trip to the Drumheller museum
- pictures from our trips and wedding. 11 pictures all together
- Wall-to-Wall from Facebook, including our mutual friends showing his father and nephew as mutual friends
- 5 handwritten cards we'd given each other over the relationship
- copy of my Spouse Benefit card
- copy of our rental lease, where I am listed as my husband's "friend"
Others:
- Life insurance policies showing the spouse as beneficiary
- phone calls
- text messages
- mortgages or land deeds with both names
- letters from friends and community members supporting the relationship
- relationship essay from the spouses talking about their relationship/feelings for each other
- trips to Canada to see each other
Things to consider - Immigration looks for:
- spouses of different religions, especially when one/both are devote to their religion. Especially if one religion prohibits marrying into other religions!
- large age differences
- ethnic/racial differences
can play a part, but not always. If you are one ethnic group and your husband is another
and the groups have animosity towards each other, then you should address it with a letter. (Example - I talked to an Indian man whose wife was Muslim. I know just from reading history that the Hindus and Muslims sometimes don't get a long in India. I advised to write a letter to discuss why the difference didn't matter to them.)
- large educational differences - i. e., you hold a Master's Degree and your husband didn't finish high school. (My husband and I have a large difference!)
- previous marriages - especially if you're from a country that shuns divorce
- previous attempts to enter Canada (not visitor visa to see the spouse) - I mean study or work permits, refugee claims.
- couples that haven't spent a lot of time together/spoken to each other/made their affairs mutual. It depends on the situation, but they really do have people with just 3 phone calls and a wedding apply! They want to see some type of dependancy on each other - even if it's only emotional.
- no family and/or friends at your wedding (I had this one)
- your relationship is not known to your close friends and family (I also have this one)
*There is probably more that I am forgetting, but that's the most common*
If you have any of the things I mentioned, just address them in your application. For example, I told you I had no family at my wedding. (We had friends and were married at a friend's house.) I wrote a letter to the VO (visa office) and told them why (we eloped some couldn't make it and some weren't invited). I also explained I have little to no relationship with my family, so my husband hasn't met them. On the other hand, I know his parents, grandma, sister, etc. He knows my friends in the USA and Canada.
If you have none of the things I listed, then you're doing better than me!
Just make sure to fill the forms out and supply proof of a continuous relationship.
Sidenote: I would try to get at least one visitor's visa for him. Even if he is denied, you can include it in the application as proof he tried to visit you. I have heard of people being questioned for not trying.
Also, my husband offered to row a boat over to Bangladesh and pick up your husband. I blinked at him and told him where Bangladesh is...... silly men.
