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akcec

Star Member
Jan 29, 2013
115
6
Category........
Visa Office......
Mississauga/Beirut
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
App. Filed.......
26-02-2015
AOR Received.
28-02-2015
File Transfer...
05-03-2015
Med's Done....
26-01-2015
Interview........
23-02-2016
My wife has an interview next week and we are wondering how much is enough evidence to take to the interview. When we submitted our application we were married for only 2 months and never lived together since we are in different countries. We did not have our wedding reception yet as we want to have it just before she moves to Canada to live with me.

Here is what we collected so far:
  • About 50 pictures of us together on various occasions and with family.
  • Air plane tickets of my visits to her (I visited 3 times in one year)
  • Bank statement showing money transfers and western union receipts (I transfer her money every month)
  • Receipt of wedding venue reservation
  • 10 pages of phone calls using WhatsApp screenshots and other phone provider records
  • 70 pages of chat records going back one year

Is this sufficient? We have more photos that we can include. We have thousands of chat pages. Wondering how much is enough!
 
akcec said:
My wife has an interview next week and we are wondering how much is enough evidence to take to the interview. When we submitted our application we were married for only 2 months and never lived together since we are in different countries. We did not have our wedding reception yet as we want to have it just before she moves to Canada to live with me.

Here is what we collected so far:
  • About 50 pictures of us together on various occasions and with family.
  • Air plane tickets of my visits to her (I visited 3 times in one year)
  • Bank statement showing money transfers and western union receipts (I transfer her money every month)
  • Receipt of wedding venue reservation
  • 10 pages of phone calls using WhatsApp screenshots and other phone provider records
  • 70 pages of chat records going back one year

Is this sufficient? We have more photos that we can include. We have thousands of chat pages. Wondering how much is enough!

Of course I can be wrong, but I really feel that 70 pages of chat logs is too much. Instead of that I would suggest you to add support letters from close friends and family.
 
akcec said:
My wife has an interview next week and we are wondering how much is enough evidence to take to the interview. When we submitted our application we were married for only 2 months and never lived together since we are in different countries. We did not have our wedding reception yet as we want to have it just before she moves to Canada to live with me.

Here is what we collected so far:
  • About 50 pictures of us together on various occasions and with family.
  • Air plane tickets of my visits to her (I visited 3 times in one year)
  • Bank statement showing money transfers and western union receipts (I transfer her money every month)
  • Receipt of wedding venue reservation
  • 10 pages of phone calls using WhatsApp screenshots and other phone provider records
  • 70 pages of chat records going back one year

Is this sufficient? We have more photos that we can include. We have thousands of chat pages. Wondering how much is enough!

I'm curious. Did you include any of this evidence with your application? If you're just collecting this stuff now, and didn't include any of it in the application, they probably need to verify the authenticity of your relationship.

I agree with lighty_j that letters would be a good idea. Also -- you mention you haven't had a reception, but did you have a wedding ceremony? Were there photos? Did family or friends attend? Letters from them and photos of the event would be a good idea.

At your interview, they will probably ask her questions about you -- how well you know each other, etc.
 
Mightytonewheel said:
I'm curious. Did you include any of this evidence with your application? If you're just collecting this stuff now, and didn't include any of it in the application, they probably need to verify the authenticity of your relationship.

I agree with lighty_j that letters would be a good idea. Also -- you mention you haven't had a reception, but did you have a wedding ceremony? Were there photos? Did family or friends attend? Letters from them and photos of the event would be a good idea.

At your interview, they will probably ask her questions about you -- how well you know each other, etc.

We did include evidence but most of it was for the period before our marriage. Now we have a lot more photos, letters, etc. after the marriage. We'll take as much as we can.

I am not worried about the questions from the interview as there is nothing to hide. Just wondering how much evidence we should take. It looks like more photos or chat pages will not help much. We had a wedding ceremony at the courthouse and have included a couple of pictures for that. We have some cards that we exchanged so will include copy of those. We also took screenshots of some Facebook posts that are relevant. In addition, we happened to appear together in a news picture for a website on valentine's day so will include that article.

What else?
 
akcec said:
We did include evidence but most of it was for the period before our marriage. Now we have a lot more photos, letters, etc. after the marriage. We'll take as much as we can.

I am not worried about the questions from the interview as there is nothing to hide. Just wondering how much evidence we should take. It looks like more photos or chat pages will not help much. We had a wedding ceremony at the courthouse and have included a couple of pictures for that. We have some cards that we exchanged so will include copy of those. We also took screenshots of some Facebook posts that are relevant. In addition, we happened to appear together in a news picture for a website on valentine's day so will include that article.

What else?

bring more wedding pictures, if you can.

it looks to me like the reason they called your wife in for an interview was to determine whether she entered the marriage primarily for immigration purposes. when you apply as a married couple, always be sure to include lots of proof detailing the actual marriage as well.
 
Proofs of gifts greeting cards if any shared shall also help
Please do share the experience for others later

Good Luck
 
my husband just had his interview and was approved.
Since it had been almost 14 months since we originally applied, he had a lot of updated information.
he brought copies of all my flight itineraries in the last year, some whatsapp conversations (we picked a couple of days for each month), screen shots of phone calls and facetime (again not every day, just picked a couple from each month), updated pictures from the last year, and receipts from places we went to together.. movie tickets, receipts from restaurants. the agent looked at everything for 10 minutes before calling him in. my husband said he had a feeling as soon as it started that he was being approved. she was quite pleased with all the extra evidence that she barely asked him much, we were out of there within 25 minutes
 
lighty_j said:
Of course I can be wrong, but I really feel that 70 pages of chat logs is too much. Instead of that I would suggest you to add support letters from close friends and family.

In my initial application we submit around 30 pages of chat logs. In the GMCS notes I ordered I saw the note "excess chat lots shredded". So yeah... 70 pages seems like overkill!
 
akcec said:
My wife has an interview next week and we are wondering how much is enough evidence to take to the interview. When we submitted our application we were married for only 2 months and never lived together since we are in different countries. We did not have our wedding reception yet as we want to have it just before she moves to Canada to live with me.

Here is what we collected so far:
  • About 50 pictures of us together on various occasions and with family.
  • Air plane tickets of my visits to her (I visited 3 times in one year)
  • Bank statement showing money transfers and western union receipts (I transfer her money every month)
  • Receipt of wedding venue reservation
  • 10 pages of phone calls using WhatsApp screenshots and other phone provider records
  • 70 pages of chat records going back one year

Is this sufficient? We have more photos that we can include. We have thousands of chat pages. Wondering how much is enough!

take everything you have to be on the safe side, they'll decide what they need/ what they want to see, better to be over prepared than not
 
spinning_sponsor said:
In my initial application we submit around 30 pages of chat logs. In the GMCS notes I ordered I saw the note "excess chat lots shredded". So yeah... 70 pages seems like overkill!

Well, you never know. I included a representative sample of Whatsapp logs, but I think it was more than 30 pages. Since we lived far apart, it was the main way we communicated.

It's difficult to say how much is "too much" and how much is "not enough". I heard from one person who sent boxes and boxes of evidence. It was so much evidence, the officer found it impossible to sift through to figure out how much of that evidence was relevant...so he requested an interview.
 
Mightytonewheel said:
Well, you never know. I included a representative sample of Whatsapp logs, but I think it was more than 30 pages. Since we lived far apart, it was the main way we communicated.

It's difficult to say how much is "too much" and how much is "not enough". I heard from one person who sent boxes and boxes of evidence. It was so much evidence, the officer found it impossible to sift through to figure out how much of that evidence was relevant...so he requested an interview.

i sent in 90 pages of chat logs. i included every chat message from our marriage to the day i sent the app, and i had to use a small font to fit it on that many pages. i knew that no one's ever going to read all of it; my intention was for the officer to skip through the log and read whatever he/she wants before shredding it.

i hope it doesn't backfire on me. i don't want the officer to just throw the whole thing away without reading anything just because it's "too much", and then opting for an interview instead. :(
 
spinning_sponsor said:
In my initial application we submit around 30 pages of chat logs. In the GMCS notes I ordered I saw the note "excess chat lots shredded". So yeah... 70 pages seems like overkill!
There's also a big difference in burden of proof for an applicant from the US versus visa-requiring countries. Applicants from the US have a very very low burden of proof unless there are a lot of red flags. 70 pages isn't necessarily overkill. I don't think it's too much, especially since the OP's wife is collecting the evidence for an interview, which means there were already some doubts about the relationship.
 
Thanks all for the replies. We have prepared all we can. Now just waiting for the interview!
 
akcec said:
Thanks all for the replies. We have prepared all we can. Now just waiting for the interview!
Good luck :D.
 
Decoy24601 said:
There's also a big difference in burden of proof for an applicant from the US versus visa-requiring countries. Applicants from the US have a very very low burden of proof unless there are a lot of red flags. 70 pages isn't necessarily overkill. I don't think it's too much, especially since the OP's wife is collecting the evidence for an interview, which means there were already some doubts about the relationship.

I think this tends to have something to do with the applicants whose countries more often attempt immigration fraud. It's less common in the US; not many people feel they need to leave a third-world country in favour of another third-world country. Therefore, this would not likely be a route for fraud.