Is this still required for the I-130? I thought I saw on here that it wasn't but it is still listed in the checklist here. Thanks!

I believe it is still necessary. What you may have read is that they don't expect as much from newlyweds. We sent in wedding and vacation photos, airline boarding passes, hotel and vacation receipts, insurance beneficiary forms, and most importantly, our marriage certificate. Our I-130 and I-129F petitions were approved without any RFEs.

Good luck,
CG

Thanks. I don't know why I was thinking it wasn't.

Things can get pretty confusing, but it helps tremendously to have VJ. As I mentioned, they are not as demanding with newlyweds because you probably won't have home loans, bank accounts, etc. The most important thing is your marriage certificate. I also printed a bunch of photos 4 to a page with captions on a color laser. If you have some pics of the two of you, then include some. Also, any kind of proof showing your visits to see your spouse can't hurt. However, these travel proofs are not required as in the case of a K-1 fiance visa.

A good idea would be to post your table of contents for your petition packages before you send them(minus personal details). Other members can look at it and might spot anything you may be missing. I did this before I sent off my petitions and it helped catch a few minor issues.

Good luck,
CG

Newlyweds who've never lived together usually have little in the way of additional evidence of bona fides at petition filing. Most fall into the "anything else you think..." category. I wouldn't lose sleep over obtaining affidavits from people who know little if anything about your relationship except they attended a party.

Yep. The affidavits seem kind of pointless. I wouldn't waste my time with them unless you have nothing else to send.

What are they going to write ? "I can attest that they are all kissy-faced with each other and they giggle a lot." ;-)


pushbrk, What were the results of your informal survey about this topic? I recall your post asking about those who sent nothing beyond the marriage certificate.

Many sent nothing but the marriage certificate. No RFE's yet and its been several months. Many approvals.

That really doesn't surprise me. The interview is the place that I would expect evidence to be asked for/presented.

Thanks for the replies all.

Perhaps a dumb question... but what is a VJ??

Back in the early '80's it was Matha Quinn and Nina Blackwood. Now it's the site your posting on, VisaJourney. Not trying to be a total smart ### but that was too easy to pass on.

Good Luck with your journey.

We didn't send anything in except our marriage certificate and we were approved with no RFE's. That may be because they were trying to reach a quota and rushing or that they didn't really need it. Err on the side of caution unless you really don't have anything. We knew that we would have joint bank accounts by the time they came around to asking for it, but they never did.

We over did it then, joint banking/savings accounts, joint credit cards, joint utility bills, life insurance on each other, and our French phone contract," I got for her to use while here". I hope she put in marriage certifcate!!! Need to make phone call quickly!!

We just submitted our marriage license and a few emails over the course of our 1 1/2 yrs together before we got married. After that everything was fine. I doubt we even needed to send in the emails but thought that since I had them, why not send them. Granted I'm also born and raised in Canada and that's not a country that they are concerned about ensuring if marriages are real or not. I know in Canada there was a recent article in the Toronto Star talking about fraudulent marriages topping the list in India, Thailand and China. Canadian immigration officials have noticed that in India there are the same people seen over and over and over again in wedding celebration photographs. The article spoke of people renting 'guests' or 'relatives' for fraudulent marriages. An investigation team has now been deployed to those areas to look into things further.

I'm just mentioning this because if you come from an area where there are higher than norm incidents of marriage fraud, then you may want to provide additional documentation/evidence to support your marriage. It never hurts, although I wouldn't go nuts about it. If you come from a european country I doubt it's as big of an issue. It's a shame that some bad apples spoil it for those in legitimate unions.

My wife "Paris Heart" even submitted emails from the very first day we talked, and she even submiited all our paperwork and the translation invoices of when we tried to marry here in France. Its hard for foreign nationals to marry here in France, Im myslef is Algeria living here and going to school. She submitted so much evidence the envelope weighted 3 pounds. She submitted all of it, and with her job, she is the last person to try to pull off a fraud of any kind. But thank you for what you mentioned. It is a shame of a few bad apples spoil it all for us legitimate ones.

People who've never lived in the same country usually don't have any of the "should include one or more of the following..." kind of evidence. If you have it, send it. If you don't, then don't worry about it until the interview.

We applied for the visa only a few days after the wedding, in Brazil. Since we don´t have joint accounts or loans yet, we sent the usual pictures of the wedding, honeymoon, and also pictures of us together, in the US, with friends (valentine´s day, b-days, etc). Also a couple e-mails and text messages we´ve exchanged over the past year. Of course we sent the marriage certificate translated and everything. We also added to the package a sworn affidavit (notarized) from my husband´s roommate. He´s been our friend from the very beginning of the relationship (and actually before that, we were all friends)... So, we tought it could be helpful to have someone swearing that he "knows" our bona fide relationship.

I don´t know what else they could ask!! LOL!

Good luck!

[quote name='Monica&Isha' date='May 26 2008, 09:11 PM' post='1872564']
We applied for the visa only a few days after the wedding, in Brazil. Since we don´t have joint accounts or loans yet, we sent the usual pictures of the wedding, honeymoon, and also pictures of us together, in the US, with friends (valentine´s day, b-days, etc). Also a couple e-mails and text messages we´ve exchanged over the past year. Of course we sent the marriage certificate translated and everything. We also added to the package a sworn affidavit (notarized) from my husband´s roommate. He´s been our friend from the very beginning of the relationship (and actually before that, we were all friends)... So, we tought it could be helpful to have someone swearing that he "knows" our bona fide relationship.

I don´t know what else they could ask!! LOL!

Good luck!

HI!

Do we still need to send evidence of bonafide marriage together the I-129F or its only for I-130?

We just sent a couple of emails from the beginning of our relationship .... the middle and recent ones .... a certified copy of the original marriage certificate (the same as our original one, as I got 5 of them on the day, just incase) .... about 10 photos, some from the wedding and others from other times we were together .... passport stamps .... and a cover letter briefly explaining the way our relationship came about.

Our packet was literally thrown together in a rush as I had to get on my plane a few hours later back to England for my engineering exams .... which were more important at the time.

We were approved with no RFE's even though the passport photos were not in bags and only paperclipped to the biographic forms ... that I do remember .... and God knows what else, as I didn't photocopy any of it.

It was simply chucked into an envelope .... there was also one question on the I-130 now looking back, that I'm pretty sure I missed too.

We were lucky .... but I put that down to the Senator we had involved in getting our approval, without him, I think we'd have been in RFE land till 2025.

VJ stands for Visa Journey

I sent all that stuff in both packages, just in case. We never know if our cases will be ´judged` by the same officer. Nowadays, it seems like they are putting them together. But it doesn´t hurt to send it all. Well... I think is better to have a little bit more, than a little bit less...