Evidence of a Bonifide Marriage???

[mare333 0]

hi all

Im getting married next week in europe.

I understand that if i apply for my spouse from US i can use IR1 visa.

BUT...

How do i get Evidence of a Bonifide Marriage ???

I mean,im in US ,she is in europe, we are separated for now, how we can have joined property or bank account? Or anything else.. Its impossible.

Can someone explain me please if im missing somenthing here...

thanx

[Tuanv 2]

Do some basic research in this forum. This question comes up a lot. Basically, you need pictures of your wedding and your time together, phone and messaging log, etc. The list can go on and on. Anything that is relevant can help.

[bobby_kvisa 7]

For evidence of Financial Co-mingling there are some of the following methods you can employ:

1) Foreign Bank Account. Open a foreign bank account in Europe in which both you and your wife are joint account holders. (This may or may not be possible, but it is something you can look into).

2) Deposit Tickets. If you deposit funds into your wife's bank account, it may be possible for you to write the name of the DEPOSITOR on the deposit ticket itself. In India, this field is available and you can fill in your name as DEPOSITOR, but the name of your wife will be listed as account holder.

3) Money Transfer. If you use a money transfer service, save the records of the money transfer. My Money Gram records have both my name and phone number and country and my wife's name and country written on them. Paypal is another service that may allow to execute money transfers.

4) Credit Card. Though it may not mean much, my USA credit card allows me to create "additional users". It does not mean we have a joint account, it simply means you can create an additional user if you like. My credit card statement now has my wife's name printed on top (as well as mine) and I now have an additional (physical) credit card with her name on it.

5) Rental Agreement. While we were together we rented a Guest House in India. The Guest House comes with a Rental Agreement in which both my name and my wife's name are listed. Even though it was really just a vacation style visit of 10 days, the document is not a bill and not a receipt but rather a Agreement for tenancy for a certain period of time at a Guest House.

Just some ideas ...

Edited August 13, 2010 by bobby_kvisa

[Mononoke28 135]

In all honesty, the only piece of evidence you need for a CR1 visa will be your marriage certificate. If you want to make your case stronger send a couple of pictures and a couple of affidavits from people who know you both and who can say that you have a bona fide marriage. I only sent a copy of our marriage certificate and two affidavits, one from my mom and one from my sister. And no, they don't have to be notarized nor apostislled. I left all other evidence for the interview.

Diana

[LotofPatience 65]

In all honesty, the only piece of evidence you need for a CR1 visa will be your marriage certificate. If you want to make your case stronger send a couple of pictures and a couple of affidavits from people who know you both and who can say that you have a bona fide marriage. I only sent a copy of our marriage certificate and two affidavits, one from my mom and one from my sister. And no, they don't have to be notarized nor apostislled. I left all other evidence for the interview.

Diana

I agree with Diana.

When I sent it in the past, I just included the copy of our original marriage certificate and 2 notarized affidavits from my parents who attended the marriage ceremony.

Loto

Edited August 13, 2010 by LotOfPatience

[OBX 51]

Same here sent in marriage certificate and three affidavits. Saved all other evidence for the interview.

Edited August 13, 2010 by OBX

[Tuanv 2]

I guess it all depend on what country you applying for.

[KayaEel 5]

I agree with the above responses. You could also complete a spousal affidavit, from yourself. Another form of proof of bonafide marriage (to be presented at the Consulate interview) will be copies of your original boarding passes for flights and any other receipts for your trips to visit each other, or trips that you took together. I had an entire binder at our interview with a divider tab listing the trip dates and support for each trip behind the divider, like original boarding passes, travel itineraries, lodging and food receipts, photographs, etc. The folks at the Consulate may several comments on how impressed they were with it. It was actually so big, that it barely fit through the slot under the glass window.

Have a wonderful wedding!

[BigJohn 4]

Why would you need copies of your boarding passes if it is marked in your visa that you were in the country during those dates??

[KayaEel 5]

Hey BigJohn,

I think that there may be a mis-communication here. I am the US citizen (USC), and I was referring to my boarding passes for my multiple trips to visit my husband in his home country before, and after, we were married. This was just another way for us to prove that we have a real (bonafide) relationship, since he could not visit me in the US. Thanks for the question though, because it reminded me that I also sent in a photocopy of my complete US passport with the stamps from my husband's home country with our original I-130 petition. (just another form of proof)

I hope that this is helpful.

[Brian&Mel 0]

What my husband did was to add my name as the beneficiary to his insurance policy and added me as the dependent/spouse to his workplace insurance. He also added my name to his bank account even before we were married.

[tokyo.lovers 6]

we didn't have any real finacial evidence either.

just a statement showing money he had wired into my usa bank account.

as long as you have other stuff, you can survive without the money evidence!!

[bobby_kvisa 7]

I agree with Diana.

When I sent it in the past, I just included the copy of our original marriage certificate and 2 notarized affidavits from my parents who attended the marriage ceremony.

Loto

Same here sent in marriage certificate and three affidavits. Saved all other evidence for the interview.

OBX & Lotto - how many photographs did you submit with your I130 petition?

The question I have after hearing your responses is why did you choose to include only a small portion of evidence in the I130 petition? In other words, why did you choose to back-load the petition with evidence, and not front-load it.

If you look at the Evidence of Bonafide Marriage Guide, you will see it says to include as many as apply to you.

Would there be some potential problem or issue with putting a heavy amount of evidence into the initial I130 petition?

I put a decent amount of evidence into my I130 petition - including Affidavits, Marriage Receipts & Invitation, & Boarding Passes & Photographs.

In other words 40% of the evidence I have was submitted to the I130 petition and remaining at the interview.

[OBX 51]

OBX & Lotto - how many photographs did you submit with your I130 petition?

The question I have after hearing your responses is why did you choose to include only a small portion of evidence in the I130 petition? In other words, why did you choose to back-load the petition with evidence, and not front-load it.

If you look at the Evidence of Bonafide Marriage Guide, you will see it says to include as many as apply to you.

Would there be some potential problem or issue with putting a heavy amount of evidence into the initial I130 petition?

I put a decent amount of evidence into my I130 petition - including Affidavits, Marriage Receipts & Invitation, & Boarding Passes & Photographs.

In other words 40% of the evidence I have was submitted to the I130 petition and remaining at the interview.

When I applied I had not found VJ yet. I read the I-130 instructions and since none of the other suggested pieces of evidence applied to us (no joint accounts, no children together etc.) I chose only to send the affidavits. In addition with Canada not being a high-fraud country I did not anticipate any difficulties and there were none. In fact none of my 10 years of evidence was even looked at at the interview! You need to send what you are comfortable with and each country will present specific challenges.

[LotofPatience 65]

When I applied I had not found VJ yet. I read the I-130 instructions and since none of the other suggested pieces of evidence applied to us (no joint accounts, no children together etc.) I chose only to send the affidavits. In addition with Canada not being a high-fraud country I did not anticipate any difficulties and there were none. In fact none of my 10 years of evidence was even looked at at the interview! You need to send what you are comfortable with and each country will present specific challenges.

Exactly what OBX said is what I too followed. Primary evidence was Marriage Certificate. As per I-130 instructions, secondary evidence was one OR many of the secondary list. Only applicable from the secondary list was Affidavits for us. That was more than enough if your application is crystal clear and from a country where the fraud is very less.

At the interview time, my wife had taken wedding album, photos together, chat history, phone details etc.

Anyway, this time we had one more secondary evidence as a concrete proof. It was our daughter's birth certificate.

Loto

Edited August 14, 2010 by LotOfPatience