Spousal Sponsorship with wedding license

[canadavisa2116]

Hi All,

I and my fiance are staying together in toronto for almost a year now. We are planning to get married this december back home(India).
I am a canadian citizen and she is on student permit.

Now I understand in order to initiate spousal sponsorship I should have marriage certificate.
Today we got marriage license from city hall. I have few questions on how to initiate the process

Questions
Can I apply now with marriage license and then provide marriage certificate in January?
Should we get married here and get marriage certi just for the file process? If so could you please let me know the best way to do so. I wont be performing any after wedding celerations here in Toronto.
Any other approach you have come across.

Thanks

 

[zardoz]

Hi All,

I and my fiance are staying together in toronto for almost a year now. We are planning to get married this december back home(India).
I am a canadian citizen and she is on student permit.

Now I understand in order to initiate spousal sponsorship I should have marriage certificate.
Today we got marriage license from city hall. I have few questions on how to initiate the process

Questions
Can I apply now with marriage license and then provide marriage certificate in January?
Should we get married here and get marriage certi just for the file process? If so could you please let me know the best way to do so. I wont be performing any after wedding celerations here in Toronto.
Any other approach you have come across.

Thanks

No, you must be married when you submit your application. A marriage license means nothing...

If you get married outside your cultural norms, expect very close scrutiny from CIC and possibly an interview.

 

[mikeymyke]

Reading your previous posts, you said that you're thinking of getting this marriage license from city hall in order to speed up the process. That will likely cause you to have an interview request (depending on what other red flags you might have), as I know for India applicants, the traditional wedding ceremony is fairly important. Although it is true that you can still file the spousal PR application without such a ceremony, and many people do successfully, getting an interview request significantly adds to the total time it will take for your spouse to get PR.

Court weddings are usually fine if the couple has a very good reason, such as lack of funds on both parties, if such a ceremony is illegal or taboo in the country of origin, security and safety concerns, etc. But getting such a wedding just to speed up the PR won't be a valid reason, and if anything, doing such a thing might actually SLOW your PR process, because of the possibility of getting an interview.

For a straightforward application with no interview, the processing time is significantly shorter.

The good news for you is that you haven't filed the PR application yet, so you still have plenty of time to address any possible red flags you might have in your application.

For example, do you guys have a valid reason as to why you're not doing a ceremony? More importantly, is there any reason why you don't plan on having ANY type of ceremony in the future, even after she gets PR? If you're financially capable of saving enough money to have such a ceremony, would you have one in December? If not, why won't you guys wait to have the wedding at a later date so that you can save up enough for a ceremony? Is the reason you're refusing to wait that long is because you just want to get PR as soon as possible? Have you invited any of your family members to the wedding and to possibly meet your spouse's family?

etc etc etc. These are all things you have to consider. I know it's not fair that if a Canadian married a US citizen, CIC couldn't care less if you simply said "We didn't do a ceremony because we simply don't like it", but that's just how it is when it comes to developing countries.

If you take my case as an example, my wife and I planned on getting married in October, but we moved it to December for two reasons: gives me more time to save up $ for the wedding and December was an ideal time for my entire family from Canada to take time off work to travel to the wedding (all 7 members of my family in Canada ended up being present at my wedding, which was a big plus for my application)

If you guys just truly honestly don't believe in having such ceremonies, or just really don't feel like having one without a valid explanation, that's fine too, but you just have to be prepared for a much longer road to get your PR.

 

[canadavisa2116]

Many Thanks for your reply.

Yes we will be having an official ceremony in December back home. So according to you it's better to apply for spousal sponsorship after Jan 2016.

If i get married here in Ontario, in presence of some wedding officiant, and submit my spousal sponsorship file by end of this month. Are there chances of interview, or delaying the process. Please suggest.

Thanks,

Reading your previous posts, you said that you're thinking of getting this marriage license from city hall in order to speed up the process. That will likely cause you to have an interview request (depending on what other red flags you might have), as I know for India applicants, the traditional wedding ceremony is fairly important. Although it is true that you can still file the spousal PR application without such a ceremony, and many people do successfully, getting an interview request significantly adds to the total time it will take for your spouse to get PR.

Court weddings are usually fine if the couple has a very good reason, such as lack of funds on both parties, if such a ceremony is illegal or taboo in the country of origin, security and safety concerns, etc. But getting such a wedding just to speed up the PR won't be a valid reason, and if anything, doing such a thing might actually SLOW your PR process, because of the possibility of getting an interview.

For a straightforward application with no interview, the processing time is significantly shorter.

The good news for you is that you haven't filed the PR application yet, so you still have plenty of time to address any possible red flags you might have in your application.

For example, do you guys have a valid reason as to why you're not doing a ceremony? More importantly, is there any reason why you don't plan on having ANY type of ceremony in the future, even after she gets PR? If you're financially capable of saving enough money to have such a ceremony, would you have one in December? If not, why won't you guys wait to have the wedding at a later date so that you can save up enough for a ceremony? Is the reason you're refusing to wait that long is because you just want to get PR as soon as possible? Have you invited any of your family members to the wedding and to possibly meet your spouse's family?

etc etc etc. These are all things you have to consider. I know it's not fair that if a Canadian married a US citizen, CIC couldn't care less if you simply said "We didn't do a ceremony because we simply don't like it", but that's just how it is when it comes to developing countries.

If you take my case as an example, my wife and I planned on getting married in October, but we moved it to December for two reasons: gives me more time to save up $ for the wedding and December was an ideal time for my entire family from Canada to take time off work to travel to the wedding (all 7 members of my family in Canada ended up being present at my wedding, which was a big plus for my application)

If you guys just truly honestly don't believe in having such ceremonies, or just really don't feel like having one without a valid explanation, that's fine too, but you just have to be prepared for a much longer road to get your PR.

 

[scylla]

Many Thanks for your reply.

Yes we will be having an official ceremony in December back home. So according to you it's better to apply for spousal sponsorship after Jan 2016.

If i get married here in Ontario, in presence of some wedding officiant, and submit my spousal sponsorship file by end of this month. Are there chances of interview, or delaying the process. Please suggest.

Thanks,

There's always a chance of an interview or delayed processing if how you get married is unusual for your culture. If it's typically to have a large wedding back home - you are better of waiting until this happens and then applying.

 

[mikeymyke]

Many Thanks for your reply.

Yes we will be having an official ceremony in December back home. So according to you it's better to apply for spousal sponsorship after Jan 2016.

If i get married here in Ontario, in presence of some wedding officiant, and submit my spousal sponsorship file by end of this month. Are there chances of interview, or delaying the process. Please suggest.

Thanks,

There are other factors in play if you wish to increase your chances to avoid the interview.

-Will you and/or your spouse's family members attend the wedding? If not, what's the reason?
-Do you have a large age/educational/cultural difference?
-Have either one of you been married before or have kids?
-Does she have any family members in Canada?

etc

 

[keesio]

If i get married here in Ontario, in presence of some wedding officiant, and submit my spousal sponsorship file by end of this month. Are there chances of interview, or delaying the process. Please suggest.

As scylla mentioned, delayed processing usually occurs when standard cultural norms are not followed. For example, what is the typical Indian wedding like? From what I understand of CIC, they expect it to be fairly large and festive. I suppose you can apply after just a small civil ceremony here and then explain in the application that you will have a big ceremony later. Then if CIC asks for proofs later down the road, you can provide it. But basically you are adding a complication to the application processing and things like this can really delay the application vs just waiting a bit longer when you have the big ceremony in India and sending in all that proof from the start. The latter is definitely a better option.

 

[samar4187]

There's always a chance of an interview or delayed processing if how you get married is unusual for your culture. If it's typically to have a large wedding back home - you are better of waiting until this happens and then applying.

Hi, I have a question regarding inland application. I got married in India last month as per Indian rituals. I am a permanent resident in Canada and my wife came to canada on student visa 3 months prior to our wedding.

We have a marriage certificate along with all the proofs (Pictures, receipts, wedding invitation etc). Do we have to register the marriage in Canada before I sponsor her through inland application or we can use the marriage certificate from India?

Thanks in advance for the advise you can provide.

 

[scylla]

Hi, I have a question regarding inland application. I got married in India last month as per Indian rituals. I am a permanent resident in Canada and my wife came to canada on student visa 3 months prior to our wedding.

We have a marriage certificate along with all the proofs (Pictures, receipts, wedding invitation etc). Do we have to register the marriage in Canada before I sponsor her through inland application or we can use the marriage certificate from India?

Thanks in advance for the advise you can provide.

You can use the marriage cert from India. No need to register the marriage in Canada.

 

[samar4187]

You can use the marriage cert from India. No need to register the marriage in Canada.

Thanks for the responding