Not having a proper wedding: is this a red flag?

[schauspielerin]

Hello,

New poster here, and I have a question about the "genuine and subsisting" relationship...

I am a 28 year old US citizen currently on a Tier 1 PSW Visa that expires 5 January 2013; my partner is a 30 year old UK citizen by birth. We are getting married in November, in a low-key registry office ceremony with no friends or family present for a variety of reasons: shortness of time, distance, cost of travel, and that we want to save everyone the travel and hassle so that they can travel to my hometown when we have a blessing and a party in the future. We are also neither of us religious in the slightest, so there's that.

In reading this forum, I've become worried that we aren't going to have things like photos of our wedding, or copies of the invitation to our wedding...because we aren't doing it that way at the moment. We just don't have time to do it the way we would want now.

What we do have is the following:

My partner is fully employed, making well over the £18,600 threshold and has been in this particular job for over two years. I am also fully employed and have been for over a year and a half (nearly the entire duration of my PSW visa). We have a joint tenancy agreement on a one bedroom flat in both our names (dated from 1 November 2012); he has been living there on his own for over five years, and I moved in with his landlord's permission in mid-October (which can be documented via email exchanges); previous to moving in with him I was sharing a house with 3 girlfriends. I am on the council tax bill for the flat we now share and have bank statements posted to the address.

My immigration history is straightforward: I entered the UK in September 2009 on a Tier 4 Student Visa; I completed my degree in October 2010 and was granted leave to remain via the Tier 1 PSW Visa in January 2011. I haven't overstayed any visa or ever been in breach of any immigration laws.

My partner and I have been in a relationship since January of 2011 (which should be easily provable, though I'm not sure the best means to use to do so). He has been to the US to visit my family twice (September/October 2011 and December/January 2011-12), and I have been to his hometown twice to visit his (February 2012 and July 2012), and all of this can be documented with printouts of emailed airline itineraries in both our names. We also have one of the most overly photographed relationships of all time, so there are plenty of photographs of us together and with our families and the like.

I guess what I'm ultimately wondering is, do you think the elopement quality of our marriage likely to stand seriously against us, given the rest of the supporting evidence we can provide? And, given the fact that we're not going to have a big wedding to point to, what other supporting documents/items would you be providing, were you in our situation?

Thank you so much for any guidance you can provide--sometimes you just need someone to give you an objective opinion of your situation; it's amazing how in one's own head it is possible to get!

[geriatrix]

I have a follow-on question to this:

I am a temporary employee and am payed by a payroll company (I've been temping with the same company in the same role since March 2011). All of my communication with the payroll company is electronic: they pay me via direct debit and email me my payslips weekly, so I don't know how I could go about getting six months worth of weekly payslips signed off on.

That said, my partner is paid a high enough wage to cover me and has been at the same company for over two years. They've only recently switched him onto electronic payslips, so it would probably be fairly straightforward to have his signed off on.

As I tend to like to have all my boxes ticked, if you were in my position, would you go ahead with trying to have the payroll company sign off on my payslips? And what would you do if they declined to do so?

Thank you for any help you can offer!

[schauspielerin]

Thank you! I made the first post before I decided to make this one.