Sponsoring Spouse from India - if somebody could relate to this query please

[evolver10]

Hello everyone,
Firstly my apologies for starting a new thread here if this topic has already been discussed in other threads before (don't intend to flood this page with redundant/repetitive threads).

I'm a PR in Canada and going to marry a girl from India (precisely Punjab) next year in July. However I'm going to visit India in January and I plan on getting a court marriage done to obtain marriage certificate before we have the traditional wedding ceremony in July.
Not sure if somebody would have any information on this or has experienced similar situation but here goes my queries:
- If I have the marriage certificate from the court and no pictures from any functions related to marriage (since there would not be any ) , could I still apply to get my sponsor eligibility approved and then apply for spouse PR after traditional wedding with supporting pictures in July ? Is there a time constraint between getting the sponsor eligibility approval and to apply for actual PR with all necessary documents and pictures from wedding?
-If this is a possibility , would it matter or create a problem later on in the application that the actual marriage dates would be different on the marriage certificate and the actual wedding ( dates mentioned on wedding invitation card, flight dates, boarding passes , dates reflected on hotel receipts etc ?
- And lastly, how long is it taking at the moment to get just the sponsorship evaluation approved after you apply ? I know it's hard to gauge this and things vary from case to case but I'm hoping somebody who has been recently approved could answer this.

Just trying to save some time for the whole process by educating myself from you guys's experiences.

Thanks very much and good luck !

 

[canuck_in_uk]

- If I have the marriage certificate from the court and no pictures from any functions related to marriage (since there would not be any ) , could I still apply to get my sponsor eligibility approved and then apply for spouse PR after traditional wedding with supporting pictures in July ?

-If this is a possibility , would it matter or create a problem later on in the application that the actual marriage dates would be different on the marriage certificate and the actual wedding ( dates mentioned on wedding invitation card, flight dates, boarding passes , dates reflected on hotel receipts etc ?

- And lastly, how long is it taking at the moment to get just the sponsorship evaluation approved after you apply ? I know it's hard to gauge this and things vary from case to case but I'm hoping somebody who has been recently approved could answer this.

Hi

The entire application, sponsor and applicant parts, must be sent together. You can't try to save time by submitting only the sponsor forms. If you do that, the app will be simply be returned as incomplete.

The actual wedding date is the one where it's official. If you do a court marriage, that is your wedding date. A ceremony later would be considered a celebration, not the wedding date.

I believe sponsor approval takes about a month right now.


IRCC wants to see weddings that fall within the cultural norm. For India, that means the traditional big ceremonies. A court marriage can lead to Marriage of Convenience suspicions.

 

[evolver10]

Thanks very much for the reply. I was under the impression that these two appplicants were sagregated since on CIC website it says that you apply to be a sponsor first.
Well that clarifies it, thanks again !

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/sponsor/spouse.asp