Maybe everyone would like to lighten up and get back on topic?
Ted, the length of your relationship before marriage is an issue IF you do not substantiate it properly. It's all in the development of things and you need to be able to show how things moved from one stage to another. I'll use my husband and myself as an example: we met online in a totally random fashion in March of 2009. By December of 2009, still without actually having met "in person", but having logged hundreds of hours in MSN chat with and without webcams, he asked me to marry him. I said yes, and we made plans for him to come to Jamaica. We were married June 2010 after living together for 8 weeks. Can you "red flags" popping up everywhere for CIC? Yes, we know, but we prepared our application with that in mind.
Look back at your relationship, how things developed. Prepare to write a heartfelt summary of how things moved along from meeting to marrying, and to show you pursued the relationship wholeheartedly. Prepare to show how you communicate (as Toby asked, how's your command of each other's languages?), how you overcome any other barriers (education, culture, age) and how you have combined your lives and presented yourselves to each other's families and friends. Yes, I know she's never been to Canada, but have you made efforts to introduce her to your family otherwise? Skype is a marvelous thing.
Or even just telephone calls. My father-in-law passed away without meeting me in person, but we spent many hours talking on the phone (well, he talked, I listened, but you get the idea).
As toby said, welcome to the underworld of international bureaucracy. The good news is, others like toby have blazed the trail, so it can be done. And you couldn't be in a better place to find help.
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