How I organized our applcation and a summary of all helpful tips I have learned

[Twelfty12]

From what I understood anything in French or English is fine.
It is only the other languages that need to be translated.

If anyone says I am wrong, I will be getting my application back..

 

[JANAIDIAN MRS]

It says that if anything needs to be translated it needs to be in English or French. I'm not sure what happens if you go half and half but I would assume it would be fine.

 

[withhardshipcomesease]

I see so many people talking about how it took months to get everything together, and I'm starting to worry a bit. It's only taken me about a week, and this is what I have:
-45 pages of Skype chats, December 2011 to now (size nine font, managed to fit separate conversations on the left and right side of the page using tables)
-14 powerpoint slides of of Facebook screenshots + 7 word pages of chat screenshots
-4 powerpoint slides of cellphone screenshots, 2 shots per slide
-24 powerpoint slides of photos, about 5-6 photos per slide
-9 pages of additional info
-6 cover pages
-Plane tickets, a few stubs

I'm just waiting for my Option C, receipt, my husband's package, and some support letters.
Is this enough?

 

[truesmile]

Ya, my half of the application (the sponsor's half) only took about a week, (3 weeks for the Option C). It's the applicant's package that takes longer. How about photos? Most importantly, wedding photos. I don't see mention of that on your list. That's about all we had, 60 photos to include and plenty from the wedding. Also, it depends on which VO you will be dealing with. Some are hardcore brutal to deal with, others not so much.

 

[withhardshipcomesease]

Ya, my half of the application (the sponsor's half) only took about a week, (3 weeks for the Option C). It's the applicant's package that takes longer. How about photos? Most importantly, wedding photos. I don't see mention of that on your list. That's about all we had, 60 photos to include and plenty from the wedding. Also, it depends on which VO you will be dealing with. Some are hardcore brutal to deal with, others not so much.

The wedding photos are included in the slides - we just had a town hall thing so there weren't many ... That might be a strike against us.
We're going through the Paris office.

 

[lalaBiH]

I disagree with you. It's always better to give more proofs than less. VOs schedule interviews because they want more information from your application, so they do interviews to get more info. And as you know, we're all trying to avoid the interview as much as possible because it can delay your application by almost a year. If they choose to skim some of your proofs because its too many pages of chat logs, then that's up to them because all the chats are pretty much the typical boring everyday talk.

As for what you said about its reasonable for people not to keep conversations when they're dating, that's true, but most chat programs already save your history from months back by default, its normal to go back to those chats when the topic of sponsorship comes up.

Chat logs and conversations can be falsified yes, but it's not that hard to spot fakes if the VO reads your chats, and knows you and your spouse's mannerisms, the types of names you call each other, etc, little things they expect to see on later chat logs.

i guess we'll wait and see.. they VO would not recognize my spouses mannerisms from a skype chat lol.. and months of keeping logs automatically is true.. but not YEARS.. i dated for 3.5 before getting married have have changed laptops in the last two..to each their own.. i just think that a 35 day trip should not yield 100 photos for proof, some taken on the same day, at the same place, i think the point is received from a simgle picture lol.. regardless good luck!

 

[Slackliner]

This is wonderful and you are a wonderful person too! Good luck!

 

[erihasting]

I'm wondering how many wedding pictures and reception pictures are good enough? I separated them with other casual photos (about 200+) but we have 400+ wedding and reception photos too.

 

[CutiePie92]

I'm wondering how many wedding pictures and reception pictures are good enough? I separated them with other casual photos (about 200+) but we have 400+ wedding and reception photos too.

that's a tremendous amount of photos. we had ~150 in total. depends though - through what VO are you applying?

 

[iNick89]

Wow.. Just sent our application to CPC-M.

We organized similar to you, except we just put all 3 envelopes in 1 box that we shipped, instead of putting it in an accordion binder first...

Now I am nervous wondering if they will be able to keep our application together / organized...?!!???!!

What does everyone think?

 

[mikeymyke]

I had like 6 separate envelopes:

1 - Sponsor Application Forms
2 - Applicant's Application Forms
3 - Communication Proofs (Facebook, texts, Skype webcam conversations, Yahoo chats)
4 - Hotel Receipts, Plane Tickets, proof of travelling together during 2 honeymoons + 2 trips, Wedding related invoices/deposits
5 - Proof of Gifts Sent to Each other (basically a bunch of 11x17 photocopies of all love letters, gifts, sent to each other), also had 10 support letters
6 - Photos

I had to use 6 because there was no envelope that could fit so much stuff into one. I ended up shipping all this into one cardboard box. I hope they don't lose even one evenlope.

 

[alex1234p]

where do i buy one of those expanded envelopes that user "pelipeli" used to send her application? i went to staples and couldn't find one. should i just use a bubble envelope? i could fit everything in there and then another bubble envelope to send it.

 

[Caribou]

Thanks for posting this.
I was looking for how to start gathering files and proof. My wedding is in 3 mo, and I wanted to start ahead.

One thing though is, I've known my "American" fiance for 13 years, and we've been dating for +8 years. I lived in 3 different countries while we had long distance relationship (and survived!).

Any 2 cents from people who had "just too many proof" to send out?
Most of flight tickets are gone beyond 2012, and we can't even remember all the trips we took as my fiance crosses border like every month now.
Most of our photos taken together are selfies as well.
Just put down what we can remember or shorten them out? or concentrate on most recent proofs only?
I would appreciate any advice.

 

[Koifish76]

Thanks for posting this.
I was looking for how to start gathering files and proof. My wedding is in 3 mo, and I wanted to start ahead.

One thing though is, I've known my "American" fiance for 13 years, and we've been dating for +8 years. I lived in 3 different countries while we had long distance relationship (and survived!).

Any 2 cents from people who had "just too many proof" to send out?
Most of flight tickets are gone beyond 2012, and we can't even remember all the trips we took as my fiance crosses border like every month now.
Most of our photos taken together are selfies as well.
Just put down what we can remember or shorten them out? or concentrate on most recent proofs only?
I would appreciate any advice.

If you have been together for 8 years, I would advise not to include selfies. Quality is better in your case imo. 20-40 photos spread over the 8 years including upcoming wedding. Gather everything you can now and by the time you submit everything, you will have a better idea what to include.

 

[Netkid]

Thanks for posting this.
I was looking for how to start gathering files and proof. My wedding is in 3 mo, and I wanted to start ahead.

One thing though is, I've known my "American" fiance for 13 years, and we've been dating for +8 years. I lived in 3 different countries while we had long distance relationship (and survived!).

Any 2 cents from people who had "just too many proof" to send out?
Most of flight tickets are gone beyond 2012, and we can't even remember all the trips we took as my fiance crosses border like every month now.
Most of our photos taken together are selfies as well.
Just put down what we can remember or shorten them out? or concentrate on most recent proofs only?
I would appreciate any advice.

We put together a 'small' package compared to some posters here; however, we went for quality and logic over volume. My wife and I met 2x in person before getting married; we met online but explained our whole timeline, our backgrounds, etc. We met in July and got married in Feb - while this might sound like a red flag, read on...

Included:
a write up from first connection to marriage to current state of where we are and our plans (obviously not too personal!) We explained how we met, where, our connection, our plan, etc.

photos from various meet-ups, trips, with each other's families, etc. on the back were dates and who was in the photo and location. I think we had about 35-40 photos total from 2013/14

communications: e.g. skype logs, emails from various stages of our relationship, chat logs, phone call log screenshots, etc. We didn't have a lot of phone calls with bills, so explained that we use other means of comms.

receipts from trips and hotels and flights; where we went, why, etc.

For me, it was highly about the logic piece - we included our wedding gift log and new joint bank a/c (which matched!) and wedding invitee list
We gave them no holes in the write-up; everything was in categories, and I used a lot of paperclips and post-it notes and highlighting where appropriate.

I hope that helps a bit - feel free to reply back if you have any q's