j47lee wrote:I am on student visa..... Got married in a civil ceremony in january.... we are living together... the marriage ceremony & reception is going to be held in August because my parents couldnt make it in jan... So wen im applying for my PR .. should i mention about the reception in august?? Need replies asap.. thanx....
YES! 1) Good to be open and honest. 2) I believe your plan for a big wedding/ceremony will HELP your application.
It is common for sponsored applicants to have smaller, compromised wedding plans due to all the crazy complications common to multi-national relationships. I had a very similar situation, and I was worried too. In my application, I wrote about my micro-wedding with only 2 sets of parents attending. Then I wrote about our plans for a big wedding reception planned for the future.
My micro-wedding (or your little civil ceremony) can introduce possible doubt regarding the validity of the relationship. To compensate for this, I tried to provide extra evidence/claims throughout my application that removed any possible doubt in the Immigration officer’s mind. It is extra work, but I think it was worth it. I added the extra stuff below, and I was approved in a timely manner without any hassles:
1. Provide extra evidence of the duration and validity of your relationship. Like more credit card records for one of your first romantic weekend trips together, or plane tickets for an early trip together, would be evidence of the long duration of your relationship. School records prove you were in Canada at the time you claim to have met her. Provide the earliest evidence (lease? Rent checks? Bank statements?) that shows how long you have lived together in the same apartment, etc.
2. Emphasize in many places within the application that no matter how small each event was, it was important and meaningful to you. Your engagement was meaningful. Your desire for bigger wedding/reception could not happen at that time due to busy studies and the typical crazy complications with multi-national parents/etc. Explain why you chose a civil marriage instead of waiting a long time for the big wedding/reception. Emphasize that your little civil marriage (and mini-celebration dinner, and mini-honeymoon) was VERY MEANINGFUL to you.
2A. Engagement: Describe how you phoned both sets of parents to announce your engagement. Or how you two had your own romantic engagement celebration dinner together, or maybe with your partner’s parents or friends in Canada. And I wrote something like “We did not have a big formal engagement ceremony/celebration because our family and friends are in 2 different countries.â€
