Small wedding, different cultures

[Valentina_SaintPetersburg]

Hello everyone!
Our case seems to be not too easy and straightforward, from the information that I have gathered online so far, so I would be really grateful for any input and/or advice from the experienced people on this forum on how to better approach our application.

My husband is a Canadian citizen, originally from India, and I am a Russian citizen. We are planing to send outland family sponsorship PR soon. We started our relationship online in September 2020 (we have proofs of every day messages and calls up to five hours). He visited me two times, first in summer of 2021 (June and July) and second time he visited me we got married in winter (December 2021 - January 2022), we had a small honeymoon in the beginning of February. Our wedding was small, with only my parents, aunt, grandma, brother and best friend present (it was COVID times so we had restrictions, and grandma is quite old and has health issues so I invited only the closest people). His relatives saw the video of the ceremony online. We have a few pictures, mostly just selfies from different locations in Saint Petersburg, one photo with a friend and some of us doing everyday stuff like going to gym. So I'm concerned it would be a problem that we didn't have a traditional Indian wedding and none of his relatives or friends attended. But we have planned to do so in Canada, applied for visitor visa in August 2021, but it got rejected.
We don't have many proofs of financial dependency, just a few random transfers and some gifts. All our relatives and friends know about us, so we'll ask them to write support letters for us.
We don't have a big age or education gaps - he's 29, I'm 25 and we are both finishing uni. No prior marriages or kids.
I'm concerned about how to approach our supposed "cultural differences" - we're actually not that different, both not religious, he is not vegetarian - eats everything, when it comes to language - we're both fluent in English, he's fascinated with russian language and wants to learn it.

What kind of questions do you think immigration will have for us? Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[Jazzed]

Shared finances seem to be a big thing these days. Any joint bank account? The lack of people in your wedding photos might be an issue. Any thing like shared insurance etc might also help your case

The genuineness of the marriage will be the biggest hurdle so anything shared you can get do it

 

[armoured]

My husband is a Canadian citizen, originally from India, and I am a Russian citizen. We are planing to send outland family sponsorship PR soon. We started our relationship online in September 2020 (we have proofs of every day messages and calls up to five hours). He visited me two times, first in summer of 2021 (June and July) and second time he visited me we got married in winter (December 2021 - January 2022), we had a small honeymoon in the beginning of February. Our wedding was small, with only my parents, aunt, grandma, brother and best friend present (it was COVID times so we had restrictions, and grandma is quite old and has health issues so I invited only the closest people). His relatives saw the video of the ceremony online. We have a few pictures, mostly just selfies from different locations in Saint Petersburg, one photo with a friend and some of us doing everyday stuff like going to gym. So I'm concerned it would be a problem that we didn't have a traditional Indian wedding and none of his relatives or friends attended. But we have planned to do so in Canada

For the wedding issue: I would just tell the truth, that you did the normal wedding according to (basically secular) conventions in Russia with no religious ceremony, and - reading between the lines - that your spouse is not very traditional/religious with respect to Indian rites. I.e. you both did a secular marriage because that was appropriate. If his upbringing and family are not traditional and they are okay with that - tell the truth. (Am I correct in guessing spouse was raised in Canada?)

You can certainly mention you may do some event or ceremony for relatives in Canada - when possible - but do not expect IRCC to pay much attention to that (because after all it's not a fact, just a claim you might do something).

Look carefully at the other ways you can document your relationship. Personally I'd say that only meeting twice including getting married is closer to the weakest part, not the wedding.

But it's not the worst relationship profile either, showing with evidence that you are a 'public' couple parents relatives friends attended is a positive.

 

[MJSPARV]

A couple ideas of little things that should be pretty easy to provide and might help boost your "relationship is genuine" documentation.
1. If you have social media and posted wedding pictures, screenshot those posts and people's comments to help show the relationship is publicly acknowledged. (Obviously if all the comments are things like"I didn't know you were dating anyone!" this idea is probably not helpful.)

2. You probably can't add each other to bank accounts without being in the same place but you should be able to list each other as beneficiaries in case of death on any bank accounts, many insurance policies etc. Similarly if either of you has changed your marital status to married anywhere like work, tax documents etc include those.

 

[Valentina_SaintPetersburg]

For the wedding issue: I would just tell the truth, that you did the normal wedding according to (basically secular) conventions in Russia with no religious ceremony, and - reading between the lines - that your spouse is not very traditional/religious with respect to Indian rites. I.e. you both did a secular marriage because that was appropriate. If his upbringing and family are not traditional and they are okay with that - tell the truth. (Am I correct in guessing spouse was raised in Canada?)

You can certainly mention you may do some event or ceremony for relatives in Canada - when possible - but do not expect IRCC to pay much attention to that (because after all it's not a fact, just a claim you might do something).

Look carefully at the other ways you can document your relationship. Personally I'd say that only meeting twice including getting married is closer to the weakest part, not the wedding.

But it's not the worst relationship profile either, showing with evidence that you are a 'public' couple parents relatives friends attended is a positive.

He spent his whole adult life in Canada since he was 17, you are correct. Hubby doesn't like huge weddings, so do I. We discussed the option of going to India and getting married there with his family, but there you can either go big or go home, otherwise people get offended. We could have something middle sized in Canada. We have applied for TR visa stating that we intend to get married, this was a doomed venture, as we later realized. But now I think we can use the refusal to our advantage as proof that we did intend to have a bigger wedding with more family members, and still want to do so.

I see. To be honest, even these two times we met required a lot of difficult logistics and compromises, and he stayed both times not for just a few days, but weeks (altogether we spent around five months living with each other which we have proof of). He even changed his university to be able to study online so he could go see me (I don't know if it would be a good idea to include his transfer docs also in our files, or it's excessive). And I tried to go to his uni on an exchange program so we could be together more, applied, but it got scrapped because of covid (I still have correspondence with uni staff). Also I was wondering if it's possible to update IRCC when we will meet after our application is in progress and send them some more proof without them asking (we are going to apply online).

I feel very weird that we have to proof something that is so obvious to us, like we are guilty before proven innocent, so it's hard to see your case the way that officer will. Thank you for an independent view of our situation, it's very helpful!

 

[Valentina_SaintPetersburg]

A couple ideas of little things that should be pretty easy to provide and might help boost your "relationship is genuine" documentation.
1. If you have social media and posted wedding pictures, screenshot those posts and people's comments to help show the relationship is publicly acknowledged. (Obviously if all the comments are things like"I didn't know you were dating anyone!" this idea is probably not helpful.)

2. You probably can't add each other to bank accounts without being in the same place but you should be able to list each other as beneficiaries in case of death on any bank accounts, many insurance policies etc. Similarly if either of you has changed your marital status to married anywhere like work, tax documents etc include those.

Thank you, this is very helpful, we will look into it! I hope the fact that I changed my surname to his also helps our case.

 

[armoured]

If you've spent five months together total and can show it, that's not so bad. Esp given COVID.

 

[his*marty]

My husband and I got married March 2020, covid times. We're not of the same culture. Our wedding was small, at home with immediate family from his side. We submitted our application in Dec. 2020, interview was June 2021 and he was approved at the interview. His COPR and visa were in his hand by July 2021 and he arrived Sept 2021. As long as you prove the marriage is genuine with everything you possibly can, it will be fine.

From his side, it would be beneficial to include letters from his family supporting the marriage if possible. That said, I'm estranged from my family and explained that and there was no issue.