How much do I need to "front-load" my petition?

[Dongbei 22]

An explanation of my relationship: She is Chinese, I am a USC, was born in the US. I'm 6 years older than she is, we met in April 2017 (1 year, 4 months ago) while she was still in college and I was studying in her city. We're both 20-somethings. She speaks English and I speak Chinese, but we do most of our communication in Chinese. Our entire relationship -- from meeting the first time to dating, developing our relationship to marriage -- was all in-person, except for 2 brief trips back to the US for me and a few brief trips back to her hometown for her.

 

We have pictures together over that time, but not a ton of them. Neither of us loves to take pictures of ourselves and we weren't thinking about all of this at the time. We have an insane amount of messages sent back and forth over WeChat and iMessage since April 2017, but the vast majority are not in English, so I'd rather not go through all of the effort of screenshooting and translating unless I absolutely have to.

 

We are getting married this month in a large ceremony (200+ people) in her hometown with both families attending (my parents and some other family flying out from the States), friends attending (both Chinese and American), etc. There will be tons of photos, video, etc. We will also go on a short honeymoon so there will be photos from that too. I also have photos of us together from when I visited her hometown in March to meet her parents before I proposed to her. 

 

We are of relatively similar backgrounds economically and education-wise. No dramatic differences there. This is our first marriage for both of us and neither of us have any criminal history. She has never been to the US or been in any immigration proceedings.

 

Based on this, how much do I need to front-load the petition with evidence? What kind of evidence should I focus on? I've heard overdoing it can raise red flags or just annoy the CO.

 

If it matters, we're doing DCF through Beijing initially, then Guangzhou once it gets past the I-130 stage.

[TNJ17 1,329]

No need to front load anything. You have enough evidence. Just send in a few pictures, some bills, accounts together, etc. you’ll be fine. 

[Coco8 1,059]

Make sure you are up to date with tax returns. They will ask for that at the interview.

[Dongbei 22]

10 minutes ago, Coco8 said:

Make sure you are up to date with tax returns. They will ask for that at the interview.

No worries there. I have the tax transcripts for the past 4 years. 

[Sarah&Facundo 614]

I'm in a similar-ish situation as you. Most of our relationship was in person. We included about 10 photos, mostly of just us with families or friends and we labeled who everyone was. We sent photocopies of each other's passports to prove we were in one another's countries and print outs of flight itineraries. We never sent any chat logs. We had no issue. We also had a summary of our relationship which was very similar in format to the post you made now. It just discussed how/when we met and how our lives intertwined after that. it was about a page. I don't believe China is a high fraud country so you don't need to go crazy. Show a few photos from the past, since you said you have a few and then a few from the family and your upcoming wedding/honeymoon and you should be fine. I would even show a copy of your friends/family's plane ticket to show it's significant enough for them to fly over. 

[pushbrk 13,826]

Your evidence of time spent in China, in the form of passport stamps, visas etc. along with evidence your family members came to China for the wedding should be all the evidence you need.  That IS "frontloading".  

 

To clarify, you will get married by filling out and signing forms at a government office.  After, you'll have a banquet and possibly a "ceremony", but you will not get married in a ceremony.  Marriage in China is paperwork in an office and the administration of a brief "oath" by an employee of the marriage registration office.