Hello all!
I've been reading in the forums and has done an extensive search, but I can't seem to find a post that will help me in my scenario.
I am a Canadian citizen, and have been a citizen for the past 15 years. My fiance is a Filipino citizen and currently lives in Manila, Philippines. We have been dating for 3 years, engaged Sept 2015, and wedding date set on December 2016.
Bit of background about us - I have been employed at a Fortune 500 company with a very good salary for the past 2 years. She is currently unemployed but has had work terms in the USA under a work visa, and we have photos from our travels across North America (various states) and the Philippines spanning the 3 years of our relationship + THOUSANDS of lines/pages of chat logs as exported from our various instant messaging platforms.
I understand that the average processing time in Manila for an outland application is 18 months (and this is faster than an inland application). However, we would like to get a jump start on this application so that it can be processed while we wait for our actual wedding ceremony day on December, 2016.
She is coming to visit me in Canada this coming Feb/March 2015 and we are thinking of having a small marriage (with two of our closest friends here for witnesses - our parents will not be present as they are in Manila) to acquire our Marriage Certificate. With the Marriage Certificate, we can start our sponsorship well in advance our December 2016 wedding. This way, we won't have to wait so long after our December wedding for her to actually get her PR and start to work here in Canada.
My question is - is this a good idea? Would this raise flags as marriage of convenience? We have secured our venue, a majority of our wedding suppliers, created a layout for our invitation + wedding program, and have an entire entourage lined up for December to vouch for the validity of our wedding. I will include all our wedding venue contracts/downpayments and a testimony from our future best man and future maid of honour if necessary to prove that we will have a wedding in December after the February marriage certificate.
We would just really like to have the marriage of certificate in Feb to expedite the spousal application process.
Any help is much appreciated!!!
I've been reading in the forums and has done an extensive search, but I can't seem to find a post that will help me in my scenario.
I am a Canadian citizen, and have been a citizen for the past 15 years. My fiance is a Filipino citizen and currently lives in Manila, Philippines. We have been dating for 3 years, engaged Sept 2015, and wedding date set on December 2016.
Bit of background about us - I have been employed at a Fortune 500 company with a very good salary for the past 2 years. She is currently unemployed but has had work terms in the USA under a work visa, and we have photos from our travels across North America (various states) and the Philippines spanning the 3 years of our relationship + THOUSANDS of lines/pages of chat logs as exported from our various instant messaging platforms.
I understand that the average processing time in Manila for an outland application is 18 months (and this is faster than an inland application). However, we would like to get a jump start on this application so that it can be processed while we wait for our actual wedding ceremony day on December, 2016.
She is coming to visit me in Canada this coming Feb/March 2015 and we are thinking of having a small marriage (with two of our closest friends here for witnesses - our parents will not be present as they are in Manila) to acquire our Marriage Certificate. With the Marriage Certificate, we can start our sponsorship well in advance our December 2016 wedding. This way, we won't have to wait so long after our December wedding for her to actually get her PR and start to work here in Canada.
My question is - is this a good idea? Would this raise flags as marriage of convenience? We have secured our venue, a majority of our wedding suppliers, created a layout for our invitation + wedding program, and have an entire entourage lined up for December to vouch for the validity of our wedding. I will include all our wedding venue contracts/downpayments and a testimony from our future best man and future maid of honour if necessary to prove that we will have a wedding in December after the February marriage certificate.
We would just really like to have the marriage of certificate in Feb to expedite the spousal application process.
Any help is much appreciated!!!