Immigration Visa Evidence for UK Spouse Short Marriage

[spgv609 0]

Hello,

I was with my husband for 5.5 years before we got married last month. I am from the US and he is from the UK. We met in the UK and I had been living there for the last 4 years (the last 1.5 years with him) and I got a great job back in the US. We got married last month (June 2014) and I have since moved back to the US and we are now starting the visa process. I have the I-130 filled out, the G-325A for each of us filled out, passport sized pictures for each of us, My US passport scanned, his UK passport and birth certificate scanned, and of course a copy of our marriage certificate. Now I am thinking about supporting evidence for our relationship - I have lots of photos of us together and on various vacations spanning the 5.5 year relationship, I have joint bank account and joint bills from when we just lived together and I have receipts from flights to/from the UK and vacation bookings. However, these are all evidence from before our actual marriage date - is this OK? Since we only got married at the beginning of June and I moved back to the US at the end of June, we don't have much evidence of us since we've been officially married (we got married in the towns registry office, I have pictures of us signing the certificate). The only thing I really have is that picture of us signing the certificate and Skype conversations.

My question is - does the evidence of the relationship need to be from the time we've been officially married? Or will the evidence I have which spans our 5.5 year relationship (even though we were not married during it) be OK? Is our case likely to be denied because our marriage is not even 1 month yet?

Thanks,
S

[Hypnos 6,576]

It shouldn't be an issue. Evidence is evidence, even if it's only from your relationship prior to marriage, and USCIS are going to understand that you won't have a lot of evidence post-marriage since you've only been married for weeks.

Most of the evidence I sent in was also prior to marriage and it wasn't a problem.

[Dohan 133]

What Hypnos said above and I would also add, make sure you have photos of your wedding day: with your families, and friends, etc. They will like to see proof of the wedding ceremony itself.

[spgv609 0]

Thanks for the replies. We got married in a registers office with two witnesses. Like i said, we have the photo of us signing the document and with our two witnesses but we didn't have a 'wedding' wedding with the dress or cake or any of that. Is it OK to just have the one photo and then supply loads of evidence from us living together while dating?

[Sparkles2013 9]

Send it all! It has to show that you have a genuine relationship. not that you have been married for years and years! I was married 29 Oct, and we filed our I-130 end of Jan (took us a while to get things together). 95% of what we sent in was from when we were dating.

[Sparkles2013 9]

I was also married at city hall.. i submitted no pictures from that day (we weren't allowed to take a camera in to the Judges chambers), and the pictures that i had from before/after that weren't the greatest quality... Don't worry! you don't need to show evidence that you had a wedding ( i had no invites, no pictures, no cards) you basically just need to show that you are in a genuine relationship and love each other

[awaywego 28]

Thanks for the replies. We got married in a registers office with two witnesses. Like i said, we have the photo of us signing the document and with our two witnesses but we didn't have a 'wedding' wedding with the dress or cake or any of that. Is it OK to just have the one photo and then supply loads of evidence from us living together while dating?

The photo you describe sounds like a wedding photo.

Marriage is more than just the wedding day, and a relationship rarely starts on that day. You have evidence to show that you've been a couple for some time.

I doubt it is unusual to apply soon after the wedding.

[Ryan H 3,810]

To answer your question, evidence spanning the course of your relationship is acceptable.

As an FYI, when you file the petition, a copy of the beneficiary's passport and birth certificate is not needed. The only time any copies of the beneficiary's passport would be useful when the petition is filed is if it shows evidence of travel together.