Quick Marriage?? What do we need to show and send?

[pip_kerr]

Hello just some quick questions about getting married before we send our outland PR application. I am Australian and my partner is Canadian and we are about to send off for sponsorship through the Sydney office, I have asked questions in other threads about whether we have enough proof apply as common-law and most people respond with just get married. We are engaged and already planning to get married however we just wanted to do a formal proper wedding. After rethinking this all through we cannot risk having the application refused due to us not being able to provide solid proof that we have lived together for one year, even though we have been living and traveling together for over 2 years now and never been separated.

We just phoned and talked with a celebrant who we can book next week, he said we can have a celebration with guests present or we can just do paperwork with two whitenesses. To be honest we would both rather just do the paperwork for now and not have to include my partners parents as they really would prefer we wait and do a traditional wedding. So my question is does it matter if we get married in private and file all the legal paperwork or is it better to do some kind of celebration. I am very confident in our other proof such as photo's, holidays, joint banks and all that, just our lease and sleeping arrangement is hard to prove. Thus getting married would take away that side of the application.

Also as our PR is pretty much ready to go and we are in a serious time crunch can we send the application with all the legal proof that we got married and then send the certificate later when we receive it.

Thanks for any help provided.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

If you are going to apply as married, you need to wait for the marriage certificate.

 

[dominokitty]

I was one of the posters who wondered about why you chose the common law route instead of being married. I want to be clear that I wasn't trying to imply that you'd be rejected if you applied common law. I was just curious why you chose that route.

Honestly, if you're going to go ahead and get married legally before sending the paperwork out, I'd recommend at least having both sets of parents there. They're going to want to see you get married (officially), plus there is a section in the spousal sponsorship form that asks all about your wedding, including the guest list. With half of the parents missing (especially the Canadian half), CIC is going to wonder why they couldn't attend. Are they not supportive of your relationship? Were they not invited? Etc..

My husband and I did something similar, just something small with only our parents and siblings there for the legal part and a big reception planned for later, but the big party never happened. That's another possibility you'll want to consider. Life gets in the way and the PR process can be crazy stressful. Trying to plan a big reception and traditional wedding is stressful enough without adding the permanent residency process to it at the same time. I couldn't handle it.

Regardless of when you have your "proper" wedding, the date of your marriage will always be the day you signed the paperwork. You'll be husband and wife from that moment forward so it's definitely not something to rush into just to make some paperwork easier.

Why are you in a time crunch if you are applying in Sydney?

 

[pip_kerr]

Thanks for the reply dominokitty, both now and on the previous thread. So basically the reason we thought we could rush through some marriage paperwork is because we are so worried we maybe rejected on our common-law status because of our lack of living together proof. I personally feel we have enough, we have photo's linking every period of our lives together and over 200 photos. We also have matching travel visas and passport stamps as well as 12 plane tickets. But like others have mentioned, as there is no lease agreement for a consecutive year we could easily be refused. I have printed pages of screen shots of our Facebook wall which not only links photos to time and dates but shows we have not been separated, but again does not prove we are under one roof.
The time crunch is because Natalie cannot work in Australia and I cannot work here so as long as we haven't posted our application off the further back we are being set in our lives. We do not want to be separated and I have to go home soon so we need to get it all in by then. Natalie will only have 3 months to stay in Oz on a tourist visa then I am planning to come home to Toronto and wait it out till its approved or declined. If it is declined we will be in a really hard position as nether one of us will be able to be each others countries. I figured if we at least got the marriage paper work done quickly next week and still sent the PR as common-law it would be another legal document adding evidence, but I can also see how it would hold us back.
It is not an option for us right now to have a proper wedding and my parents and family definitely cannot just fly to Canada for it, so we are pretty stuck. If we are declined how can we ever live with each other for a year in one place and prove we are common-law? Just seems like such a hard system.

 

[pip_kerr]

I was one of the posters who wondered about why you chose the common law route instead of being married. I want to be clear that I wasn't trying to imply that you'd be rejected if you applied common law. I was just curious why you chose that route.

Honestly, if you're going to go ahead and get married legally before sending the paperwork out, I'd recommend at least having both sets of parents there. They're going to want to see you get married (officially), plus there is a section in the spousal sponsorship form that asks all about your wedding, including the guest list. With half of the parents missing (especially the Canadian half), CIC is going to wonder why they couldn't attend. Are they not supportive of your relationship? Were they not invited? Etc..

My husband and I did something similar, just something small with only our parents and siblings there for the legal part and a big reception planned for later, but the big party never happened. That's another possibility you'll want to consider. Life gets in the way and the PR process can be crazy stressful. Trying to plan a big reception and traditional wedding is stressful enough without adding the permanent residency process to it at the same time. I couldn't handle it.

Regardless of when you have your "proper" wedding, the date of your marriage will always be the day you signed the paperwork. You'll be husband and wife from that moment forward so it's definitely not something to rush into just to make some paperwork easier.

Why are you in a time crunch if you are applying in Sydney?

What would you suggest considering what I wrote in my last post?