Like I say, I dont know if it made a difference, maybe in a secondary sort of way. I had only known my wife about 6 months before we applied for her Spouse visa so it was probably more critical for us that we make the relationship part of our application more water tight than usual.
And therefore less critical for you, whose relationship is more longstanding.
We were a bit paranoid of them turning us down on the relationship side of the application so we used the receipts to beef up that part of the application.