Hi ,
I have recently applied for my wife's 309 visa and I am bit confused about the part about nikah/rukhsati .
My father passed away a year ago and my mom has schizophrenia and since my father's death she is in shock. Our house was given by my father's company and since his death my mother is living with my maternal grandmother in a joint family house where her brothers and sister are looking after her due to her mental condition. My aunt and uncles arranged my marriage ceremony with one of their neighbuors daughter. Her house is 1/2 min walk from theirs .
I have been in Australia for last 6 years and have no place else in Pakistan to call my family home so my wife stayed at her place after the marriage as it was not possible for me to have her stay at my maternal grand mother house. She is also studying and would finish her studies in late Nov/Dec this year.
I stayed in Pak for 12 days after marriage/nikkah ceremony and used to spend every day with my wife at her place and stay late night mostly while juggling between getting documents for my wife's visa and my family documents and procedures related to my father's death e.g. sorting out my mothers pension, succession cert and looking after my mother as well.
I have gone out to different social events with her as well both with my side of family and hers. We also have a lot of pictures of time spent together.
The ceremony was done at a marriage hall with guests invited, barat going to hall, and the whole function happening as it normally does with the exception that the girl went back to her house.
My question is what am I supposed to write in statement and advise my wife for interview whether or not rukhsati happened as in cultural/traditional sense there was no separate ceremony for that and she is still staying at her parents place and once visa is granted only walima/reception would happen. As for our family we consider Nikah to be the islamic marriage and there is no separation between nikah and ruksati. But due to the above mentioned reason with my mother's condition I couldn't stay overnight just late night at my wife's home and due to family/cultural issues of not being our own house I wasn't able to have her stay at my maternal grand mothers house..
After reading a previous post on this forum from Breathe I am not sure about all this . Would visa be rejected even when I have compelling reason as to why I couldn't do a proper rukhsati and why my wife is not living with her in laws?
Should I go back to Pakistan and do a proper ruskhsati function with photos or should I just say we had marriage but due to reasons above she stayed at her place and I visited her there instead?
And If I have to go back, the thing due to project deadlines I don't have any leave grant until after mid Jan 2019. My manager is happy to write a letter with company letterhead explaining why I cant take leave until the project is finished. Would that help ?
