if your applying for a spouse/fiancee visa, there are 3 things you need to convince the case worker of, to get you that visa..

1) accommodation - that your wife has somewhere to live, must be the easiest of the 3 to prove, either your husband owns, rents or lives with parents, i believe 3rd party support is still allowed for a spouse/fiancee visa, and as long as its not over crowded you should be fine on this part. you shouldn't fail on this.

2) no recourse to public funds - , can be more difficult to prove- no exact figures as to what you need to pass on this, unlike the accommodation test, i think this is down to mostly the case workers opinion/interpretation of the rules, but like i said b4, you should be looking at having around £250 a month spare from your budget to support her, £2000-£3000 in your account or having good savings, or shares etc.. the more money the better , so for some with loads of cash, should be easy to pass again ..

if your low paid, short of money, might be a good idea to move in and live with your parents for a while, so you can build up your savings, save as much as you can,or even get them to sponsor you and your wife and live with them until you get here and find a job...

and for getting money into your account from a bank or friend - be warned - If there are disproportionate deposits and withdrawals in the bank statements, they should be explained in the sponsor's letter.

so either get the money and wait 6 months so the deposit dosn't show on your lastest bank statements, or have a really good excuse as to where the money came from, but thats risky if you ask me

3) relationship - that you and your partner have a genuine relationship, i think everyone knows this one, must have meet at least once, evidence pics, letters, logs, hotel bills, receipts, flight tickets, etc..

if youre going to fail, it will probably be on number 2, a few on number 3 (lack of enough evidence) or another reason like overstaying in the past, or not supplying the correct evidence.. so check, double check you've got everything.. and you shouldn't fail

so plan, prepare and pass


finally - Some consulates, case workers are more rigorous than others, and some applicant profiles invite more scrutiny than others, so thats why sometimes it's a bit of a lottery with a visa, thats why your friend may have a got a visa and you didn't, even thou you had more evidence,money etc than her.

good luck to all