[Shanishah]

Below is the requirement I received from my CO few days ago:

"Additional evidence of contact/relationship with your sponsor (eg.
letters with original envelopes, emails, telephone bills with call
details, wedding photographs, pre-wedding photographs, post-wedding
photographs from outings/family gatherings, money transfers, evidence of
cohabitation etc).

Please note: that if you are providing phone cards as evidence of
contact between you and your sponsor, you should first obtain
itemised call records from the phone card company."

The issue is that after getting married, my wife had to stay with her parents because of studies and after few months she had to go to Australia for university admissions, we planned to start our shared life when I get a visa and join her in Sydney. When I lodged my application I showed that we started our life together as otherwise they would have rejected my application considering it a fake marriage.

Now she is in Sydney with her parents studying bachelors. Our CO asked for evidence, we have a lot of our wedding photos but we don't have much pre and post marriage photos, just 2 or 3 photos together. We have pics of family gatherings but we are not together in photos.

CO also asked how we communicated with each other to which I said that we use FaceTime and Viber, she asked for last 2 months Viber chat and FaceTime snapshots. I have a lot of them. Would that cover up our less photos of family gatherings or outings together? Should I also take snapshots of Facebook marriage status on which a lot of my relatives and friends congratulated?

Should I ask my wife to come to Pakistan for few days so that we get the snaps together for family gatherings and outings? Would that cover the evidence for cohabitaion? What kind of things that we can use for evidence?

Please guide me in this, I am so worried.

 

[CCMS]

All the evidence must relate to the period before you lodged the application.

I would provide as much evidence of the wedding as possible, including statements by family members from both sides. Provide an explanation why you had to be apart and provide as much evidence of possible how you stayed in touch during times of separation.

 

[kangaroogirl]

For Facebook, if you are both on Facebook and are joined as "married", you can access a "Facebook Us" Page which is great if you've checked in places together, shared things, tagged photos.

Just go to www.facebook.com/us and you'll be able to do screenshots back as far as you've both known each other on Facebook.

Just a good little tip which helped me show the history of our relationship through Facebook

 

[ozzy]

Did you get wedding cards from family and friends? You could send them, or as you said a screenshot of people congratulating you.
Did you go on any sort of honeymoon after your wedding?

 

[Shanishah]

All the evidence must relate to the period before you lodged the application.

I would provide as much evidence of the wedding as possible, including statements by family members from both sides. Provide an explanation why you had to be apart and provide as much evidence of possible how you stayed in touch during times of separation.

Thank you very much for so beneficial guidance. I have noted down the points you have highlighted and I am working accordingly. I am really grateful to you.

 

[Shanishah]

For Facebook, if you are both on Facebook and are joined as "married", you can access a "Facebook Us" Page which is great if you've checked in places together, shared things, tagged photos.

Just go to facebook/us\and you'll be able to do screenshots back as far as you've both known each other on Facebook.

Just a good little tip which helped me show the history of our relationship through Facebook

O thank you sooooooo much sister for such a great idea. I have checked the "Facebook Us" page and added some more photos and took the snapshots. So much beneficial!!!

 

[Shanishah]

Did you get wedding cards from family and friends? You could send them, or as you said a screenshot of people congratulating you.
Did you go on any sort of honeymoon after your wedding?

Yes, I sent the wedding cards already I have also taken the screenshots
Actually in our culture, we can go for honeymoon after we start a shared life. That is why we didn't go for it.

Please do let me know if you guys have more suggestions, that would be really valuable for me. thank You

 

[Shanishah]

Guys please tell me how many photos should I send to CO? I am about to send photos of our engagement(10) + Wedding(20) + outings(3) + family gatherings(7) + facetime(40) + facebook(20).

Should I send photos in the form of albums or colour photocopies on paper? Thank you

 

[Mish]

Guys please tell me how many photos should I send to CO? I am about to send photos of our engagement(10) + Wedding(20) + outings(3) + family gatherings(7) + facetime(40) + facebook(20).

Should I send photos in the form of albums or colour photocopies on paper? Thank you

Some say not to send alot of photos but I am of the opinion better to send too many than not enough especially in your case where they have asked for more evidence.

They don't like albums. What we did is put 2 photos to a page in word and then say underneath date, location and who is in photo. It was then saved as a pdf and emailed to the co. Other times we just printed them on paper in colour and have it to them.

 

[Engaus]

I personally think 40 FaceTime pictures is way too much...I wouldn't even be including them to be honest. Just include your FaceTime call history.

When we did our application I included about 20 photos and they always had the both of us in them - at weddings, Christmas, holidays, family get together a etc.

But that's just my opinion

 

[Star Hunter]

I'm late on this, I know but I love the evidence questions. It really is important to go for photographs that actually do contribute to the story of your relationship as it relates to your social context - since photographs are primarily social evidence. Send in photos that show that you and your wife coexist in the same social context - ie that you share mutual friends, that you are accepted by each other's families, that your present yourself as a couple to the world at large. Photos of you with your wife's family, or her with your family, the two of you together with friends or family are all exemplifications of that joint social context.

FaceTime call history would be more than enough on it's own without the photos I would imagine. The photos themselves prove nothing above what the call history can prove. The risk with sending too much of one kind of evidence is that there have been stories of COs sending back evidence without looking at it because it's just too much....although I don't think your evidence comes even close to bring excessive enough to evoke that kind of response (one member on here submitted over 700 photos and had them all returned not looked at by the CO).

Facebook screenshots are good, and the Facebook/us page is a good resource and one my husband and I used, although we didn't take many screenshots spanning our relationship - we took one of the first page that showed our mutual friends, our relationship status and joint likes, check ins etc. We then took one showing our engagement announcement and a few of wedding pics we posted that got likes and comments from friends. Facebook is a valuable tool, but it's also important to not rely on it too much since it's online media that is easily manipulated and evidence that online friends see you as a couple aren't really as strong as evidence that you are a couple in the real life context.

It sounds like your CO wants evidence that you have lived as a married couple for a period of time after marriage (and before marriage if possible, but with different cultures they are a little more lenient I think with pre-marriage cohabitation). You need proof that you at least began the process of building a life together - have you shared any household expenses? Rented a place together or brought a cat together? Do you have bills or letters from friends/family where the envelopes are addressed to the both of you? Do you have joint memberships to clubs where the same address is listed for the both of you?

You say that your wife had to leave to come to Australia so you were unable to live together, but did you provide any form of financial support to her while you were separated? Money transfers, joint bank accounts, wiring money etc.