Photos as evidence for spousal visa?

[dogedays 1]

Hi all, 

 

My partner and I are applying for a spousal visa for myself using USCIS's new online portal. 

As we are newly married and I am living in my home country (we are using consular processing), we haven't combined our finances, so we don't have a lot of evidence to submit. We are already getting a few affidavits from people who know us well, but I was thinking of also submitting photos of us together. I have a few pictures of us together taken over the past couple of years. 

 

Is this a good idea to submit with the initial evidence, and if so, how many photos would you recommend, and how would you recommend formatting them? I was thinking a PDF with a cover letter, and then about 5-10 photos labelled with the dates they were taken. Does that sound good? Should I format it differently? Not include them at all? 

 

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for reading, and have a lovely day!

[JKLSemicolon 427]

I submitted photos as part of the initial evidence. My goal was to submit as much as possible on the front end, when it would be presumably given someone's full attention.

 

My approach for the online attachments was to make a cover sheet for each separate PDF I uploaded. At the top, I made a table that showed the Petitioner Last Name Petitioner First Name, Petitioner Middle Name, and then another table with Beneficiary Last Name, Beneficiary First Name, and A-Number.

 

Below that I wrote a brief description of what the attachment contained, and at the bottom I put a (digital) signature and date. I basically treated it like a supplemental information form attached to the I-130, which is not required by any means, but I wanted each individual file to make sense to the person opening it without needing any other context.

 

For the photos themselves, I arranged them to have four per page in chronological order, with each one labeled by date and location. Depending on what software you have available, you might be able to easily pull this from EXIF data rather than having to write it out.

 

In my case, I included photos from each period of time that we have been together in person over a number of years, but that is also because I also included (in a separate attachment) other documentation of our in-person visits like flight itineraries, boarding passes, and passport stamps, so I wanted it all to match up.

[Ryan H 3,834]

2 hours ago, dogedays said:

we haven't combined our finances

 

Not an issue, not a requirement, and not something you will have been expected to do.

 

2 hours ago, dogedays said:

so we don't have a lot of evidence to submit. We are already getting a few affidavits from people who know us well,

 

Before you conclude you "don't have a lot of evidence to submit", think of anything you do have that is evidence of time spent together in-person, that is where your focus should be.  Unless you have little to no evidence regarding time spent together in-person, skip the affidavits, they carry little to zero weight in the overall evaluation of a file.

[angeljolie 188]

I always suggest including "milestone" (i.e., first meeting, trips/holidays together, marriage, meeting relatives, wedding) photos. In our  case, we created a timeline of our relationship based on these milestones. We submitted around 3-4 photos per milestone. We wanted to paint a compelling story without overwhelming the reader.  

[dogedays 1]

On 12/10/2020 at 3:33 PM, JKLSemicolon said:

I submitted photos as part of the initial evidence. My goal was to submit as much as possible on the front end, when it would be presumably given someone's full attention.

 

My approach for the online attachments was to make a cover sheet for each separate PDF I uploaded. At the top, I made a table that showed the Petitioner Last Name Petitioner First Name, Petitioner Middle Name, and then another table with Beneficiary Last Name, Beneficiary First Name, and A-Number.

 

Below that I wrote a brief description of what the attachment contained, and at the bottom I put a (digital) signature and date. I basically treated it like a supplemental information form attached to the I-130, which is not required by any means, but I wanted each individual file to make sense to the person opening it without needing any other context.

 

For the photos themselves, I arranged them to have four per page in chronological order, with each one labeled by date and location. Depending on what software you have available, you might be able to easily pull this from EXIF data rather than having to write it out.

 

In my case, I included photos from each period of time that we have been together in person over a number of years, but that is also because I also included (in a separate attachment) other documentation of our in-person visits like flight itineraries, boarding passes, and passport stamps, so I wanted it all to match up.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it!

On 12/11/2020 at 6:50 AM, angeljolie said:

I always suggest including "milestone" (i.e., first meeting, trips/holidays together, marriage, meeting relatives, wedding) photos. In our  case, we created a timeline of our relationship based on these milestones. We submitted around 3-4 photos per milestone. We wanted to paint a compelling story without overwhelming the reader.  

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it!

On 12/10/2020 at 5:21 PM, Ryan H said:

 

Not an issue, not a requirement, and not something you will have been expected to do.

 

 

Before you conclude you "don't have a lot of evidence to submit", think of anything you do have that is evidence of time spent together in-person, that is where your focus should be.  Unless you have little to no evidence regarding time spent together in-person, skip the affidavits, they carry little to zero weight in the overall evaluation of a file.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it!