Very new, and very confused and nervous.

Welcome to the forum! 

Beginning on this journey can be considerably confusing and frustrating.

FBI certificates claim that they take between sixteen and eighteen weeks to get.  I have found that some get them around four weeks whereas others get them at the thirteen week mark.  These things expire after the third month they're dated for.  (ie., if you get send for it in January, the FBI sends you a letter dated February 11th, then you have until May 11th for CIC to receive it.

Ontario marriage certificates take about twelve weeks to acquire, in general.  With a Postal Strike things can go longer. 

Your medical expires exactly one year after you have it done. 

Gathering together all the other evidence can take a few days to a few months.  This includes things like pictures, travel tickets, phone times, emails, receipts of gifts between you, cards and the such like.  You also may be interested in buying life insurance for each other naming each other beneficiaries of one another and also go for the .pdf from the Ontario Government for both types of  "Power of Attorney".  (I googled it to get them, but you can have your fancee get them at any Service Ontario office)

Filling of the forms can take someone anywhere from a couple of hours to do up to and including months, depending on how many places they've lived at and how many jobs they have taken. 



To answer your hypothetical:

If you did have that marriage certificate IN HAND on "August 26th 2011" it means that you were married three months earlier, on or about May 26th. 

Approximately ten to twelve weeks before you actually received your Wedding Certificate you would have asked the Commissioners' to have done a Police Check on you, on June 8th some time.

Your pictures would have been taken roughly between July 24th to August 10th (allowing a week to get them, for your medical and to put the rest in an envelope for the application). THESE ARE NOT THE SAME SIZE AS PASSPORT PHOTOS. 

 You would have done your medical (in Canada, preferably as it's less expensive usually) in or around August 12th to August 24th. 

You will have already had someone go online or to the bank to pay the $1040 to the Receiver General to not have to wait for any RPF fee request.

You would have gathered together all your pictures, wills, joint chequing or savings letters (bank took a week to get us ours, at the cost of $16.00) already and have filled out the forms exactly by August 16th, and you will be mailing the package Xpress Post with tracking for August 31, just after you have double or triple checked all the facts therein. 

After that, you will wait approximately forty days to receive confirmation that the Canadian is approved as a sponsor.  There will be a period of silence, then you may see that they've updated the file with medical received and police report verified. 

After a few more months, you will receive a passport request with a waived interview (because you're just that smooth, with a completed and accurate, easy-to-understand application).  You have 30 days to get that puppy in, and have them issue you your brand new COPR (Confirmation of Permanent Resident) and send your passport back.

All you have to do then, is land. 

You will not "screw up" any job that the young lady has.  You will not be allowed to search for a job.  You will not be allowed to go to school lasting more than 6 months during the time you are visiting your Lady here in Canada.  Simply getting married does not affect citizenship, sponsorship or Permanent Residency. 

Reading the happiest paperwork in the world again and again will calm you down considerably when you realize what exactly the good folk at CIC want.  I'm thinking you will desire to go OUTLAND (Out of Canada) even if you are visiting here.  It's faster, kinder, gentler, and even then you feel like you are under a microscope.  Which country are you from, please?

Good luck, and if you have any other questions or need clarification, just ask.  Either myself or a more senior member will certainly assist.

-H

Edited for clarity and a spelling mistake.


Edited by Patience Tuesday - 05 Jul 2011 at 10:01pm

Good air in, other air out.  Folks have been through EXACTLY what you have been through, and have not only 'survived', but 'Overcome'!

United States?  Excellent!  These are the forms you wish to fill.  Fear not!  Just because they're "if you are outside of Canada" forms, you can still come up and visit your fiancee.  Just remember, you are VISITING, not MOVING IN. 
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/fc.asp

Second, you are correct.  There will be about a five to eight month wait for you and your True Love AFTER you send in the paperwork.

Some have come up, claiming they're visiting friends, get married, then go back to the States where they work until they are able to "land".  Sometimes they come back up to visit and do stuff for the application like that medical, always claiming they're just visiting for x days, weeks or months.

Some come up to visit, get married, and stay six months, go back home to prepare their things to send back to Canada, get their PR card, and just move to Canada.

Some come here, and both know that the sponsor will support them both.  The sponsor is already paying for rent, heat, hydro and water after all.  The extra groceries and toilet paper will not overly affect a household, especially if you have some savings in the bank down South.  Every six months you get to send in an extension for $75 so you can continue to stay here.   If you go Outland with a properly prepared application, you very well may not even NEED to extend your stay.

If you pull your paperwork together, and indeed make copies of the relevant proof of relationship (which should be fairly easy since you have invested so much time with one another), you could have all of this done in those six months, including receipt of your COPR.  Let's put together a scenario:

You get married in October.  Ontario is a b*tch for marriage certificates.  Sure, others will get them sooner than some, but let's face it.  Those are "other" people.  You will probably get a copy in thirteen weeks.  That makes it January thereabouts. 

Okay, now we know when to fairly expect your marriage certificate, we figure out when to put in the request for the FBI certificate.  Ours took 7 weeks.  They claim it's going to take more time, but you don't want to risk too far in advance.  If you request the silly thing the week or two before the wedding, you won't be amiss.  Still gives you plenty of time to deliver the thing in with the rest of the package whether it comes earlier or later.

Remembering that the wedding certificate is going to be approx 12 weeks, give or take luck, we then focus on getting the pictures.  They are not allowed to be more than six months old when CIC receives them.  Some of these are also used for the medical, so it's prudent to get a sheet of 10.  Ours was incredibly inexpensive, $17.00 from a gentleman who runs a studio. 

If you get them a week before you do the medical, which could very well be done in January then you have a nice time to figure on what you want to do with this wait. 

Do you have 'ties' to the States enough to come up here to visit during that three month "Wait before the send"?  If not, your best bet MAY be to come up, do the things at the scenario times, then go back to the States where you work. 

Do you have the ability to come up here, knowing there is no work or studying for you but relying on your Fiancee to pay for everything?  Again, she's already paying rent, hydro, all that good stuff. 

Considering she wouldn't be paying long distance, that could be put towards your consumables, food and the like.  I don't know.  Some folk just make do, and some folk just can't make do.  It'll be up to you good folk to figure out whether that will break her or not.  It may be that you only have to renew your stay once, for that 75 buckeroonies and then you're home free. 

Hard decisions, our friend.  You of course will be speaking with your young Lady, too.

Dang straight you want to start collecting your proof now.  You'll probably want to photocopy everything you send in, including the application and the fee paper.  Oh, about that.  You can order that fee paper now.  Lemme see...

"Complete the Right of permanent residence Fee portion if you have decided to pay this fee with your application. The Right of permanent residence fee must be paid before permanent residence will be granted. If this fee is paid with the application we will not have to contact you later. This could reduce your processing time by two months."

That means you can shave some time off by giving them the total of $1040 right off the bat.  We're allowed to pay that fee at any time.  Nice, eh?
Tim and I requested a form from them to take to the bank, because I seriously have issues with my printer.  The paper requested only took a few days, and I was able to SEE the stamp put on it.  Felt good.  If you're cool with using the computer to pay your fee, by all means. 

So, now that we're filling out a 'rough draught' and paid for our fees, we now need to figure out what each of those extra questions mean on the forms.  If you get stuck with any one of them, for example, if they look like "trick questions", then just put the form number and question number here and we'll help you.  We look after our own here.  ^^  I'll tell you an example: 
First of the sponsorship forms; IMM 1344A.  It asks whether you want to withdraw your application if the sponsor is found not to be acceptable as a sponsor.  This question you check "yes" to.  Otherwise they process the whole request, and decline it because... dun dun dunnnnn the sponsor is ineligible.  XD  Grief and gracious.

You can order these forms, too, if you want to hold paper in your hand.  Some people like that; a tangible something that they can fill out for the final draught that they do on the website. 

If you put your heads together, you might also come up with other ways to show CIC that your relationship is ongoing, caring and totally genuine.  We bought insurance for each of us through Co-Operators (who at first had a policy to NOT insure the American) because well, you need insurance and also it's really nice to show that you're intermingling your lives together.  Wills are also nifty cool for that, and also those Power of Attorneys.  Right now we're a little broke to be looking into something like basicfunerals.ca and besides that it's a little creepy for me.  XD 

We asked around: our friends and family were asked to throw together a few paragraphs saying we were genuine and ongoing.  My sister came through for us.  She wrote a very nice letter detailing briefly what our relationship looked like to her, and that she believed in us.  If you can start nagging friends and relations for a few words, that would be good too.  (Well, nagging may be too strong a word, but it's another 'something' that can be done earlier or at least between wedding and sending in of the application. 

I liked filling out my forms, re-reading them again as needed.  It sure helped with our 'essay question', which is a shaded box at the end of one of them, stating "on a separate sheet of paper" then asked for additional proof of why they should consider us.

I truly believe the more you become familiar with these forms, the happier and more stable you'll be.  Sure, you're going to freak out from time to time.  Heck, I've done so many times and each time this forum has been calming. 

There is one other thing that I sure as heck wished that I saw before I sent the whole darned thing in, and that's how to get CAIPS notes from the applicant to the sponsor.  IMM5475 Authority to Release Personal Information to a designated individual.
Yeah, that one.  It's part and parcel of viewing information too. 

Any further questions?  Others may glean some information for their pockets too, so I'm answering you here rather than on the Private Messages.  Other people may also want to put in their corrections or other advice too. 

They are not going to refuse you because of age.  You both are at least 18, and that's all that you need to be. 
CIC is really quite generous, you know, especially to citizens of the United States.  We have it "easy", the sponsors and the applicants of that country.  The only things they will refuse you for is inadmissibility due to your sponsor being a current bankrupt, or currently having not paid taxes, or currently behind on child support payments, or at the moment drawing social assistance.  They frown on an application if the sponsor is serving time, and will refuse it.  If the sponsor is a sexual predator, well, they will also refuse it.  CIC does not want someone who had been in default of a previous sponsorship attempting to apply again.  All of this makes sense. 

They would be looking into your background for any DUI or assault charges or the such-like.  If you had decided to ride a wild bull through your town/city utterly in the altogether while firing off a rocket launcher indiscriminately, well, that is cause for inadmissibility.  I doubt strongly that you would have done anything to obtain a rap sheet.  Even then, there are ways to overcome most criminal issues.  (Usually time plus getting pardoned, but still fairly easy.)

The application will point out more of what they really don't want to approve.  All of the stuff makes sense when you start reading it.  Did you start an insurrection in a different country?  You will have to explain yourself.  Were you ever issued a deportation notification elsewhere?  Again, please explain yourself.  CIC always lets you have your side of the story. 

You may be despairing over your financial situation.  Even if your spouse is making minimum wage or is collecting Employment Insurance (even disability insurance!) , CIC will approve.  I have seen cases in which the spouse is not even drawing Employment Insurance, but has a letter from Mom and Dad indicating that they will help with financial matters be approved.   See how incredibly generous CIC is?  If you were to bring your finacee to the United States, you would have to pass their Low Income Cutoff which is fairly high, in my opinion. 

Have you decided to lie on your application?  Are you going to misrepresent the truth in any interview called?  Highly unlikely, but if you were contemplating it, do understand that that is grounds for a decline. 

If you gave time to being a soldier, you may find that you are checked a little bit closer to make sure that you did not cause any war crimes.  Again, highly unlikely in your case.

The only thing that you and anyone else may have an issue with is actually getting INTO Canada to visit.  Yes, you are from a Visa exempt country.  That means that each and every time you come to this part of the world you are in essence asking for permission to visit here.  If for whatever reason the Immigration Officer has taken a dislike to you, you may be denied that visit.  Sucks.  Sucks harder if you were denied a visit the weekend before your wedding.  They keep a copy of the decline, too, in a system called "FOSS" which every border guard can access.  So if you are declined at Detroit, you may find that you are also declined in New York crossing, if the border guard decides to look you up.  MOST folk from the US do not have an issue crossing that invisible line, though.

You are applying for only yourself, correct?  You don't have any children?  If so, your application should be much easier to work on then say, that one person with the two children that did not have their custody all sorted out. 

Hmm... what else?
If you were in a previous relationship that actually was common-law or marriage, you will need to show dissolution of that. 
Are you trying to marry JUST to get into Canada?  If so, expect to be declined.  If your relationship is not genuine, well, again, no.  You can't come here to stay, CIC says. 

Start finding proofy things, put them in as much as a chronological order as you can, grab hold of as many letters of support that you are able to access.  Start creating your story from it's beginning to the natural conclusion - we met here, started talking, realized we liked each other, became friends, became best friends, started dating, became exclusive, and now we want to get married and live together.  May we stay in Canada, please?  Oh yeah, and here's my FBI report showing that I'm squeaky clean, my medical showing that I'm healthy, a handful of photos to your specifications and a relatively low fee to help process all the paper that I stuffed into this envelope. 

If you are honest, able to pay, reasonably healthy (and you have to be REALLY, REALLY sick for CIC not to welcome you), and giving them a logical 'story' to follow, you'll be good. 

-H

**EDIT: other reasons I have seen that have faced further scruitiny: huge age or religious differences, cultural differences to the nth degree, etc., if people look at you and your fiancee and say, "no way!" then you need to address these and press on.  Not speaking the same language is also something that CIC wants to look into.  I don't think any of these really apply in this situation though.




Edited by Patience Tuesday - 06 Jul 2011 at 8:39am

They won't refuse you because of age! When my husband and I applied I was 24 and he was 22. I worked at a coffee shop at the time not making a whole lot of money and my husband was an editor here in Vancouver and just starting out. Now we are happily living in Canada together!