“but how long you wait is determined by luck and how busy the embassy is” –Jbloggs
I totally disagree. Granted the embassy is busy, and it now seems to take 6-8 weeks for your application to get to the top of the pile, but then the strength and quality of your application will shine through.
If you follow the rules & guidelines, and put yourself in the shoes of the ECO (and understand what he/she is going to be concerned about, need clarification of), then you are almost assured of a successful (timely) “YES” result.
The ECO does not need to wade through pages & pages of printed e-mails and messages saying “I love you”…. nor is gonna be impressed with a letter from your local Holy-Joe saying that you attend church every Sunday and he’ll be proud to conduct the wedding ceremony.
What WILL impress him is a concise statement of your finances…. not just a bank statement & pay slips, but long-term investments (ISA’s, shares, endowments etc etc), and an update on your future pension situation. This shows that you have thought about the consequences of marriage, it’s not some spur-of-the moment “let’s get married” affair, you have stability in your financial affairs, and are already thinking of how to provide for the future.
What will ALSO impress the ECO is if your future wife has already travelled outside the Philippines. Visas (and entry/exit stamps) from other countries in her passport are the equivalent of gold ! An itinerary of countries she has visited (dates of entry/exit, reason for trip) is a must. This shows the ECO that the applicant is very unlikely to be entering a “marriage of convenience”, or be an economic refugee, as she could have effectively already done that in countries she’s already visited.
So, NO, it’s not “luck”….. but by emphasising the good points, and presenting the information in a concise, readable, and relevant way, you are basically giving the ECO no option but to say “Yes”.
