Hi All from a South African husband and Canadian wife.

[Schloshd1]

Hi All
I've been browsing this forum for the past month and gained a lot of valuable info. I just wanted to hello and share our situation.

My wife, Kim, and I were introduced online at the beginning of the year through a mutual friend while she was in Canada and I was in South Africa. Kim is a Canadian citizen and I am a South African citizen. We hit it off immediately and she came out to visit in May for a few weeks. While she was here in SA we got engaged and were married in Canada in September. We had a civil ceremony and a reception with about 50 guests.

I returned to SA 2 weeks ago and we had planned to do an outland application for a spousal visa. We are however seriously considering doing it inland now, as being away from each other is terrible for both us. I'm sure that everyone on here knows exactly how it is.
I will be going to visit her at Christmas but if we decide to go through with the inland application then I will be staying there and we'll get our application in ASAP and start the waiting game just like everyone else on here. Fortunately we already have most of our documents etc together so it shouldn't take too much longer to complete our package.

Anyway, that's our story.
I will continue reading the forum for as much info as I can find to help with our application and please bear with me if I ask a few stupid questions that may already have been covered elsewhere on the forum

Andrew

 

[mc1234]

You can apply outland while being in Canada, you just have to main legal status (i.e do a visiotr visa extension) good luck!

 

[netsrak]

Hi All
I've been browsing this forum for the past month and gained a lot of valuable info. I just wanted to hello and share our situation.

My wife, Kim, and I were introduced online at the beginning of the year through a mutual friend while she was in Canada and I was in South Africa. Kim is a Canadian citizen and I am a South African citizen. We hit it off immediately and she came out to visit in May for a few weeks. While she was here in SA we got engaged and were married in Canada in September. We had a civil ceremony and a reception with about 50 guests.

I returned to SA 2 weeks ago and we had planned to do an outland application for a spousal visa. We are however seriously considering doing it inland now, as being away from each other is terrible for both us. I'm sure that everyone on here knows exactly how it is.
I will be going to visit her at Christmas but if we decide to go through with the inland application then I will be staying there and we'll get our application in ASAP and start the waiting game just like everyone else on here. Fortunately we already have most of our documents etc together so it shouldn't take too much longer to complete our package.

Anyway, that's our story.
I will continue reading the forum for as much info as I can find to help with our application and please bear with me if I ask a few stupid questions that may already have been covered elsewhere on the forum

Andrew

Outland....

 

[imonec]

Andrew,

I'm a South African sponsored by my wife. submitted my inland application Sept 17, 2012. still waiting to hear anything but keeping my fingers crossed...

I decided to go inland since:

I live in Canada and have legal status here with my closed work permit (did a company transfer with no LMO)
The processing times in Pretoria 25 months (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm/fc-spouses.asp) is currently longer than inland 8 months plus average 3-4 months (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm-fc.asp)
I could get an open work permit once i'm approved in principle AIP
Since I have legal status in Canada I can travel, although many on here would advise against that, and for many different although valid reasons. Not everyone is here with a work or study permit. I think your plan might be to come and visit and then just extend your stay...? if you go inland you might not be able to travel and re-enter Canada and they will also cancel your application if you do.
If you apply inland you need to be available for an interview at the office you specified

There are just as many benefits to going outland but at the end of the day I needed to make a decision and since I'm looking to get the open work permit asap so I could have more flexibility for jobs it was my first choice.

make sure you keep record of all your visits, entry into canada with stamps, photos of outings/trips/parties/wedding/reception etc. basically you need to be able to convince immigration that your marriage is real.

Also, if you don't have kids and you're not expecting any at the moment your sponsor does not need to make a certain minimum amount, but they still need to declare their income.

best of luck

Imo