ddobro2 said:
Well then my application must have gotted thrown into the MOC pile at Buffalo (is there really a MOC pile at Buffalo, and come on, how big would such pile be?), because not only did I have a "small civil ceremony," I never had a "big wedding to follow" like mcmasters. In fact, I bet I had the smallest wedding of anyone here. I don't think I agree with this rule/theory, even without the bias I have. Under this logic, Kim Kardashian's hypothetical immigration application would totally pass the "marriage of convenience test" (I think 8 million on your wedding would qualify as "big to-do"), whereas mine would fail miserably even though I have managed to stay married a lot longer than 72 days.
Indeed.
Some facts about us and our marriage and background:
- We did the bare ass minimum to get married in California. We married in a Santa Clara county government chapel with the officiator (a black lady wearing an Obama lapel) and the clerk recorder herself as a witness. So that would be 4 people in the room -- one of them taking photos and doing paperwork -- and you see my timeline.
- I could have invited my friends and family, well, the ones who could make it on such short notice, but I didn't think it would be fair at all to my wife's family, which is why it's going to be this next summer, well, the unofficial one.
- I'm 8 years older than my wife. Granted we're not
that apart in age but there's a noticeable difference.
- She is Chinese (only by looks, through and through an extremely smart Canadian nurse), I'm a blue-green eyed French/German male. Her family speaks quite a different background of languages, from English to French to Mandarin to Lao to Taiwanese. I only speak some English, French, Spanish and German. We have a very different ethnic background but if you ever talked to her, she has no accent, very smart, very opinionated, and she acts as any other Canadian does.
- Some of the evidence we provided were pictures, including ultrasound images of our baby, cropped onto pieces of regular printer paper at a medium resolution to save cost of ink on photo paper. These are pretty easy to doctor given the crummy ink/paper used.
- Some other evidence we provided were phone call logs, skype history, Facebook messages on each others wall which included showing when the marriage was and family's surprise as we moved the date closer from December to October. These could have easily been doctored as well.
Without a doubt the Canadian government is biased depending on which country the applicant/ spouse sponsored is from. Someone who was trying to buy their way into Canada from the states (i.e committing immigrant fraud), it's easily within the window of likelihood one would certainly have the money to throw at a lavish ceremony. I don't see wedding size having much bearing as a litmus test of marriage validity. For other countries that are more high risk of fraud, without a doubt, it's a different case.
Talking to the Buffalo VO employees, the CBSA, CIC, and also just a general understanding of immigrant law, as a couple trying to prove a marriage is genuine, if you have a copy of your marriage license performed in either Canada or the U.S. (<- obviously the single biggest piece of verifiable evidence and requirement), have a couple pictures showing you together, a couple supporting documents like phone calls, there really isn't much reason for them to deny you. Provided one doesn't have a complicated marriage and criminal background this should generally (<- this is my escape from the outliers/exceptions/unexplainable delays) be a really straight forward thing.
