Worried that my application will be denied for whatever reason.

[charmander5]

My husband and i got married last week. We met on the Internet in 2014 have been flying to see each other every 4-6 months since October 2015.

He is a Canadian citizen and i am an American.

We got married at a courthouse. His parents and some of our friends were there and that was it. He is an immigrant too Canada as well (moved there when he was 5--15 years ago), his only family in Canada is his parents, and none of my family wanted to spend 800 dollars on a ticket for a 2 hour event. We plan on doing a real ceremony in a few years when we are settled down.

We have thousands of hours of Skype logs, plane ticket receipts, photos of us (not much of us and other people. We really keep to ourselves). I have history of special events on Facebook. But he doesn't have one and never has.

His parents are willing to support us financially and in every other way until we are on our feet. They are willing to write a letter explaining this.

Our friends have offered to write letters explaining our relationship.

Do we have enough proof? That's really all we have...we got married because we love each other and knew we were ready for a life together. Him coming from an immigrant family, we both believe Canada is a place of opportunity and a great place for a family. This is where we want to live. America is not really my home anymore and i don't want to live here with my husband.

If i explain that in a letter as well, is that bad? Should i not do that?

I have butterflies inn my stomach and I'm over thinking everything. If our application is denied i don't know what we're going to do. We'll be very devastated.

What did you guys provide in your applications? What advice do you have for us?

Please help! Thank you! We're both so nervous!

 

[Pontianak]

It sounds like enough to me... I'd say start filling out the application.

 

[Aquakitty]

You have nothing to worry about. Just follow the instructions and ask questions here when you aren't sure. You're an American and thus the burden of proof for married couples is a lot lower. Unless you are a criminal, I'm not sure what you are worried about.

Everyone is very stressed going through this process (I went through a bottle of nerve pills to get through it), but let me tell you once you get that app in you will feel a lot better. Don't delay

 

[Pontianak]

I'm not sure what you are worried about.

You read enough horror stories, and well... it's enough to make anybody worried. It's just important to remember most horror stories are rare cases and the vast majority go through without a hitch.

Charmander5, in all seriousness you sound like you have enough to submit an app and you'll likely be approved. Remember that Canada is more welcoming right now of immigrants than the USA is. We had problems immigrating my wife to the USA (3 year fight, lawyers... the whole shabang, total horror story let me tell you...) so we gave up and applied for me to go to Canada instead. The process is MUCH better and everybody has been far more helpful. People on the forum are also always willing to help lend a hand if you have any questions on the application process.

I'll be moving to Canada next week after applying in Sept of last year. Take it from somebody that has seen and lived through the horror of the USA immigration side... Canada is much easier in comparison. You'll be fine.

 

[danawhitaker]

My husband and i got married last week. We met on the Internet in 2014 have been flying to see each other every 4-6 months since October 2015.

He is a Canadian citizen and i am an American.

We got married at a courthouse. His parents and some of our friends were there and that was it. He is an immigrant too Canada as well (moved there when he was 5--15 years ago), his only family in Canada is his parents, and none of my family wanted to spend 800 dollars on a ticket for a 2 hour event. We plan on doing a real ceremony in a few years when we are settled down.

We have thousands of hours of Skype logs, plane ticket receipts, photos of us (not much of us and other people. We really keep to ourselves). I have history of special events on Facebook. But he doesn't have one and never has.

His parents are willing to support us financially and in every other way until we are on our feet. They are willing to write a letter explaining this.

Our friends have offered to write letters explaining our relationship.

Do we have enough proof? That's really all we have...we got married because we love each other and knew we were ready for a life together. Him coming from an immigrant family, we both believe Canada is a place of opportunity and a great place for a family. This is where we want to live. America is not really my home anymore and i don't want to live here with my husband.

If i explain that in a letter as well, is that bad? Should i not do that?

I have butterflies inn my stomach and I'm over thinking everything. If our application is denied i don't know what we're going to do. We'll be very devastated.

What did you guys provide in your applications? What advice do you have for us?

Please help! Thank you! We're both so nervous!

I can't imagine you're going to have many issues. I do understand worrying though, as I've literally done nothing but that through the entire process, about any and everything with the application you can possibly imagine. My husband I met online originally as well, we didn't have a huge wedding (mostly his family and some of our mutual friends, aside from my daughter only one of my family members was able to attend). While we'd known each other online much longer, we didn't meet in person until 2015 and got married less than a year later. We've seen each other every six to eight weeks throughout the duration of our relationship, for several weeks at a time each visit. Even with the lower burden of proof for Americans, I somehow worried what we had wouldn't be enough.

I was never contacted to provide anything else in terms of proof. We received our PPR e-mail this week, and my daughter and I are up in Canada now waiting for our COPR to arrive. The entire process is a waiting game, and it's nerve-wracking, for certain, but if you hang around here you'll find there's quite a few American/Canadian couples who met online who don't seem to have any issues.

 

[just a square]

Don't stress out, you'll be fine. Applicants from USA very rarely have their apps denied. And you seem to have lots of proof so really nothing to worry about.

 

[charmander5]

I forgot to mention that him proposing to me and us getting married happened within the span of a week. We've been talking about getting married forever though.

Does the time frame look bad?

 

[wait_so_long]

I forgot to mention that him proposing to me and us getting married happened within the span of a week. We've been talking about getting married forever though.

Does the time frame look bad?

What's done is done. You can't change that, so don't sweat it. Your Skype logs, travel tickets, etc. showing the beginning and development of your relationship is more important.

 

[CdnandTrini]

I forgot to mention that him proposing to me and us getting married happened within the span of a week. We've been talking about getting married forever though.

Does the time frame look bad?

No, the time frame will not in and of itself cause any concern as long as you do a good solid application with all of your proof and explanations. Many couples have to do things in different ways because of the challenges involved with long distance relationships and cross border love .

All of your explanations make sense. Many spouses have small weddings for precisely some of the factors you stated above. My husband could not get a travel visa the entire course of our relationship and so we had to get married in his country and none of my family or friends were able to attend. We dated long distance for around 6 years and the first 3 years of our relationship, we did not have a camera or even cellphones with cameras and he did not own a computer!!

And the other posters are quite correct in their responses about US/Canada couples as they do not "seem" to be as heavily scrutinized as some other countries. You must still do a good application though. My only suggestion would be about how you are both going to support yourselves when you are both in Canada. Yes it is good to have letters from family or friends but for your own sake, the sooner you and he can be financially independent, the better.

I have seen some cases on here where both partners are grad or post-grad students and some of those couples live with their families but again, this information needs to be clearly explained in your application.

Congratulations on the marriage and best wishes for a speedy process.

 

[Novel]

the fact that outland applications are a thing in itself means that by definition, most of these applicants are living apart in somewhat similar situations. your situation sounds good enough to me!

 

[danawhitaker]

I have seen some cases on here where both partners are grad or post-grad students and some of those couples live with their families but again, this information needs to be clearly explained in your application.

We didn't get particularly detailed in our explanation, and had no issues. We provided a short letter from my husband's parents saying that we'll be living with them until we get on our feet. That was it. I've seen people mention that detailed plans and explanations are a must and I wonder how necessary that really is. As long as you show you have some kind of plan, you're probably fine. But I don't think it's particularly something to stress about. I provided absolutely zero details about my plans for employment after landing beyond saying that I'm self-employed.

I will say that this probably wouldn't be adequate when the sponsor is living outside of Canada. It's definitely clear that they often want quite a bit of information proving how you are going to be returning. But in the case where the sponsor is already in Canada, I suspect that level of detail is unnecessary. That could change with time, of course, but that's just my opinion as someone wrapping up the process and who worried non-stop that they didn't provide enough detail in this area.

 

[Landagirl]

My husband didn't propose to me either we just discussed it and thats what I put in our application. I went to visit him and we got married in the backyard of the lady that married us. No family no friends and we had no date set as his schedule was too unpredictable. This was not our first marriage and we explained in the application why we did it this way and we had no problems with our application. We had a document request but that was in regards to his 3 kids. We announced it on Facebook after we said I Do and I sent in a screen shot with our application. I also sent in some Skype, phone records, and our plane tickets from trips and 15 pictures. We had no engagement announcement, no reception, no honeymoon and no problems. Don't over think everything or you are going to become a miserable unhappy stressed out person for 4 months, you will be fine!

 

[Novel]

My husband didn't propose to me either we just discussed it and thats what I put in our application. I went to visit him and we got married in the backyard of the lady that married us. No family no friends and we had no date set as his schedule was too unpredictable. This was not our first marriage and we explained in the application why we did it this way and we had no problems with our application. We had a document request but that was in regards to his 3 kids. We announced it on Facebook after we said I Do and I sent in a screen shot with our application. I also sent in some Skype, phone records, and our plane tickets from trips and 15 pictures. We had no engagement announcement, no reception, no honeymoon and no problems. Don't over think everything or you are going to become a miserable unhappy stressed out person for 4 months, you will be fine!

Thanks for sharing, thats good to know! Only 2 weeks into my application and the stress is real.

 

[Aquakitty]

Thanks for sharing, thats good to know! Only 2 weeks into my application and the stress is real.

You have to understand the burden of proof for this kind of thing barely exists for Americans.

For instance, I am a lot older than my husband, we met online, no proposals (we just both agreed to get married), we got married on a bicycle in Las Vegas.Oh and he was out of status for years. And he got his PR in 3.5 months.


So I'm not saying don't provide all the proof required, and certainly follow the rules, but no need to stress so much.

And I know you all are stressing and trust me, I think I took years off my life stressing about this for years. However, I am here to tell you to not let it get to you too much. You'll get this over with and wonder why you made such a big deal about it.

Like, some people here refresh their MyCIC or ECAS every hour, that seems a little over the top to me.

The thing that truly "gets" most people is forgetting to sign the documents, or forgetting required documents. In those things, take a lot of care.