Evidence of Bona Fide Marriage?

[jenniferjones101 19]

Hi All,

My wedding to my UKC fiance is fast approaching...April 14! I live in California and we are getting married in Vegas (he is coming here on VWP for 9 days then goes back to the UK to work). We are busy getting our I-130 application packet ready to submit as soon as he is back in the UK. We have been together since August 2010 and first met in person in October 2010. There have been SEVERAL trips since then - Nov 2010, Dec 2010, Feb 2011, March 2011, May-July 2011, August 2011, Oct 2011, Nov 2011, Dec 2011-Jan 2012, Mar 2012, Apr 2012 - which we can prove with flight boarding passes and copies of our passports. We wil obviously have our marriage certificate from the State of Nevada, photos of the times spent together, receipts for wedding rings, etc. I am also going to add him to my bank account when we get back into town from Vegas in a couple of weeks. We can't add much more in terms of emails, etc. since we communicate mostly though Skype (phone and video). Will the marriage certificate, photos, passport copies, boarding passes, and a joint checking account be enough to show evidence of a bona fide marriage? It seems like it would be, since we can prove we had an ongoing relationship prior to the marriage, but just wanting to check and double check before we send it in. I definitely want to take all necessary steps and precautions to avoid the dreaded RFE!! Any advice or suggestions are much appreciated!

[Ryan H 3,856]

Your list of items looks good.

[WrightFamily 34]

Hi All,

My wedding to my UKC fiance is fast approaching...April 14! I live in California and we are getting married in Vegas (he is coming here on VWP for 9 days then goes back to the UK to work). We are busy getting our I-130 application packet ready to submit as soon as he is back in the UK. We have been together since August 2010 and first met in person in October 2010. There have been SEVERAL trips since then - Nov 2010, Dec 2010, Feb 2011, March 2011, May-July 2011, August 2011, Oct 2011, Nov 2011, Dec 2011-Jan 2012, Mar 2012, Apr 2012 - which we can prove with flight boarding passes and copies of our passports. We wil obviously have our marriage certificate from the State of Nevada, photos of the times spent together, receipts for wedding rings, etc. I am also going to add him to my bank account when we get back into town from Vegas in a couple of weeks. We can't add much more in terms of emails, etc. since we communicate mostly though Skype (phone and video). Will the marriage certificate, photos, passport copies, boarding passes, and a joint checking account be enough to show evidence of a bona fide marriage? It seems like it would be, since we can prove we had an ongoing relationship prior to the marriage, but just wanting to check and double check before we send it in. I definitely want to take all necessary steps and precautions to avoid the dreaded RFE!! Any advice or suggestions are much appreciated!

Your Time together is Excellent!!

[cathy2904 97]

All we sent apart from our marriage certificate was three affidavits from people who knew us. We were only just married and had not lived together other than on visits so when we filed we had no other evidence of an 'ongoing' relationship. We were approved with no problems.

Good luck and congratulations on your forthcoming marriage.

[jenniferjones101 19]

One more question with regards to my I-130 packet. I am sending several 4x6 photos of us at various times we have visited each other. Any suggestions for how to place these in the packet (i.e. in ziplock bags, paper clipped together, attached to letter paper, etc.) or can they just go inside the envelope I'm mailing the entire packet in? Suggestions appreciated! Thanks again everyone!

[Ryan H 3,856]

One more question with regards to my I-130 packet. I am sending several 4x6 photos of us at various times we have visited each other. Any suggestions for how to place these in the packet (i.e. in ziplock bags, paper clipped together, attached to letter paper, etc.) or can they just go inside the envelope I'm mailing the entire packet in? Suggestions appreciated! Thanks again everyone!

I printed pictures out on paper, put numbers next to the pictures, and then put a description next to the number that corresponded to the picture.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Ryan H

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

One more question with regards to my I-130 packet. I am sending several 4x6 photos of us at various times we have visited each other. Any suggestions for how to place these in the packet (i.e. in ziplock bags, paper clipped together, attached to letter paper, etc.) or can they just go inside the envelope I'm mailing the entire packet in? Suggestions appreciated! Thanks again everyone!

Doesn't really matter. When I was all fresh and new at this, I had some old photobook pages, so I stapled a 3-photo holder to a letter size paper. Later applications I just popped some shots into a MS Word document, re-sized to make small, added a text box to name and date each, and printed on plain paper. Everything got approved quickly and nobody wrote me a note saying the photo holders with photopaper were lovely or the smallish plain paper photos were cr@p. They don't care as long as they aren't falling out of your package and they have to retrieve them from under their desk. Photos are secondary evidence.

[Chris2991 0]

Good luck with the wedding! You sound so much better organized than we were! But be aware that some chapels might insist on mailing out your completed ceremony paperwork to the courthouse who will then forward your certificate to your home address - some friends of mine had to wait three weeks before they finally got their marriage certificate. If you can, ask to take the paperwork with you after the ceremony and take it over to the courthouse yourself, they will issue your marriage licences (get a few copies - you'll need 'em!) right there and then.

Hope that saves you some time.