^{HELPFULL SUGGESTIONS}

^{HOW TO CHOOSE A LADY
YOUR FIRST LETTER
A SAMPLE FIRST LETTER
WHAT KIND OF PICTURE TO ATTACH
WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T SAY IN YOUR FIRST LETTER
WHAT IF SHE DOESN’T REPLY TO YOUR LETTER?
WHAT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT
CORRESPONDING WITH HER?
WHAT IF SHE ASKS YOU TO SEND HER MONEY?
YOUR FIRST MEETING}

Dear Gentlemen,

We are sure that our suggestions will save you a lot of trouble and will help you with the difficult task of finding your beloved lady abroad.  It is indeed very difficult to “find that unique flower which is meant only for you, in a huge beautiful garden full of bright blossoming flowers”.  Our goal is not only to help you find your loved one but to also assist you through the entire process until you reach your goal. We would very much hope that only seriously minded men contact us. We also believe that our ladies are indeed determined to find that one and only they have been dreaming about all their lives.

HOW TO CHOOSE A LADY

First of all, you have to decide what you really want. If you just want to give it a try to see what will happen, you probably aren’t the right client for us. If you just want to find a friend for the holidays or just want to find a pen-pal, you should let the lady know up front that this is all you want because if her intentions are different and focused on finding a husband, she should not waste her time corresponding with you.

If you are indeed serious about finding a Russian bride, you should realize that there are certain expenses involved in connection with visiting her, filing the paperwork for a fiancee visa, moving her to your city, planning a wedding, etc. Unfortunately, men do not always adequately evaluate their circumstances and capabilities until they are already involved in a relationship and then end their relationship half way or just stop corresponding with the ladies. We know of stable and respectable men who promised love and commitment to a lady and then vanished into thin air without any explanation.  Russian women are trusting and sensitive and are shocked and hurt by this.  Please be considerate to the ladies’ feelings.

We also want to dispel the myth that every woman should be happy just because you are an American (Englishman, Frenchman, etc). Russian women look for love, respect and mutual understanding in their partner, not for a particular country of residence.

After you have determined the goal of your search, you should also define your ladies’ search criteria – her age, education level, whether she has children, hair and eye color and so on. You should not choose her as just a thing of beauty. You should get to know her thoughts, her character, her habits, etc. You are choosing a partner for your whole life and she therefore must be compatible with you as a person. This means that your search should be well defined. Do not forget to adequately evaluate yourself, taking your age, education and where you live into consideration. You should not choose too many ladies at once. Write to 5 or 10 first and wait for their replies. If you don’t see your ideal woman among them, then choose some others and try again. 

We strongly recommend that you contact at least 5- 10 ladies to increase your chances for positive results.

YOUR FIRST LETTER

Your first letter is the most important letter of your entire relationship!  Your first letter, written correctly, will help you and your lady to get to know each other more quickly and to see if you are compatible, will save you time, trouble and money and will help protect you from disappointment.

How should you write your first letter? Here are some pointers:

1. By all means, address the lady by her name. Even if you have prepared a generic one-size-fits-all introductory letter (it is possible to do this effectively), you should write the name of each woman individually.  As far as the greetings are concerned, it can be Hello in the first couple of letters followed later with “Dear”.

2. Introduce yourself. Put your first name, last name, country, state and city.

3. Let her know where you found her profile, for example, on the www.yourbride.com

Let her know what it was in her profile that caught your attention. Was it her beautiful eyes, sweet smile or her outlook on life? Be polite and don’t be afraid to give her compliments but do not exaggerate, especially in the first letter. Stress that she interests you as a person, not just because of her appearance. It is not by chance that you wrote to her, is it?!

4. Now write about yourself. Be honest and open in everything from the very start. Let her know your age, height, weight, your education and what you do for living. Tell her whether you were married before, if you have children and if so, how many. What are their ages? Do they live with you? If not, how often do you see them and what kind of relationship do you have with them? 

You may also write briefly about your family – parents, brothers, sisters if you have any.

5. What are your hobbies, your plans, what do you dream about and what do you expect from your loved one?

6. Do not send your letter without your photo. Promising her you will send it later will make her think that you mean “never”. Ladies often don’t reply to such letters.

7. Letters translated into Russian are the most popular. Women answer those letters first. Our professional and inexpensive Letter Translation Service will be very helpful to you for translating your letters. 

A SAMPLE FIRST LETTER

Hello Marina,

My name is Adriano. I live in San Diego, California. I am 45 years old, 185 cm tall and 78 kg. I found your profile on www.yourbride.com You have beautiful blue eyes, and your smile just enchanted me. We seem to have the same interests. You seem to me to be a warmhearted, tender and caring person. That is what attracted me to you.

By education I am an engineer. Now I work as a computer programmer. I was married, and have been divorced for 5 years. I have an 8 year old son. He lives with his mother in New Jersey. We get along well, although I rarely get to see him. My father is Italian and my mother is a Native American. I was born and raised in America, although I often go to Italy on business and to visit relatives. I have a house on the coast but it is lonely there by myself.

I enjoy sports and I play basketball and tennis. I enjoy nature and go camping with my friends butI dream of doing it with my family someday.  I have a boat and I love to take it out on the ocean. I work a lot but I enjoy my free time. I am looking for a kind, romantic, honest, devoted lady, full of life and energy, to be my soul mate who believes in love and dreams of being loved!!! I want to find my one and only so we can build a life together, full of joy and discovery through life’s ups and downs. I love children and I would like to have more someday. Your son is welcome. I am sure I would be a good father to him. I’m sending two pictures with my letter. One of them is of my son and me.

Please write me more about yourself, about your family, your son, your hopes and dreams. We may be destined to be together. Let’s find out. I'm looking forward to your reply. Please send me some pictures of yourself.

Best wishes,

Adriano 

My address_________

My home phone # ______

Date _________

PLEASE NOTE that Russians write the date differently from Americans. They write the date first, then the month and then the year. In order not to make a mistake, you’d better write it out, e.g. 24 October 2002.

Your letter should be one or two pages, not more. It would be best to translate it into Russian to make your letter easier for the lady to understand.  You could use a more generic introductory letter to use in correspondence with several women. You would only have to have the letter translated once, yet you could use it any number of times. Letter Translation service

If your handwriting is not very legible, you should compose your letter on the computer and print it out. Otherwise, your letter could be difficult to understand. If you do print out your letter, don’t forget to write something by hand at the end along with your signature. Also, if you’re using a computer, Spell-Check and Proofread your letter! Sometimes spellcheckers won’t catch every mistake, especially if the wrong word is used, so this is why proofreading is important. DO NOT FORGET to write the lady’s name in every letter. Do not try to save time and effort by printing out one letter without any names, then filling in the blanks. This kind of impersonal letter often remains unread. Every woman wishes to feel special and you want her to feel that her letter was written especially for her. Try not to write boring “colorless” letters. Don’t forget your sense of humor.  Remember that there are other people who might be writing more interesting, and sincere letters. You want to stand out and have her write you back.

If you reply to a lady’s letter that she sent in reply to your profile placed on our website (you will probably receive a lot of replies), you should update the text of your reply so as to be more personal and individual and contain answers to any questions she may ask. Answer all of her questions honestly. If you don’t answer a question she asks, she may think you are hiding something unpleasant about yourself and be hesitant to correspond further.

Keep copies of the letters you send, especially those you send by regular mail. Letters are sometimes lost and if you have a copy, you will be able to send a second one. Copies of your letters will also be useful if things work out and you apply for a Fiancee Visa with the INS.

If you send her a letter by regular mail, address the letter neatly and do not use abbreviations. Write her address on the envelope using English letters but Russian words, just as you receive it from us in your order.

Do not forget to enclose your picture (please see below how it should look). Please make sure to add enough postage for the destination. If a lady would have to pay for the extra postage, she might just refuse to receive it.

WHAT KIND OF PICTURE TO ATTACH

Let me stress once again that your first letter should be accompanied by a picture or two. You want to make sure that the lady takes you seriously.  Your picture should be clear, good quality and recent. Pictures of you wearing business attire will be much more interesting to women than pictures of you in a T-shirt. Your look should be kind, cheerful and self-confident.  You should be alone in the picture (no male or female friends). This picture will be crucial; a lady may not even read your letter is she does not like your picture. Remember this: YOUR PHOTO IS YOUR BUSINESS CARD. Do not send seminude pictures. If you wish to impress her with your outstanding physique, you can do it later. Do not wear sunglasses on the picture.  You do not need to hide your eyes if your intentions are decent.

If you send a first letter without a picture, consider that you have not sent anything. You will lose her. You do not have a good recent photo?  It means that you do not take your search seriously and thus you extend it in time.

WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T SAY IN YOUR FIRST LETTER 

Do not brag about being an outstanding person, about your status, income, native country. You just need to emphasize that you are able to provide for your future family. Remember that first of all, a lady needs you as a person, not as a source of income. Do not focus too much on her appearance as her personality traits should be most important for you. Do not speak of your love in the first letter. Do not describe your painful divorce, your unfortunate relationships with women. Be polite and attentive. When you develop mutual interest towards each other through the letters, you can ask about everything and say everything about yourself. You should get to know each other very well even before your first meeting and then you should not be disappointed. Do not forget about little tokens of attention to the lady – flowers, inexpensive presents and so on. Try to call her on the phone, even if she does not know the language very well. Hearing a person’s voice will make you feel much closer to each other. Encourage her to learn the language. Use the opportunity to speak to her on phone with an interpreter’s help. We offer this service for a very affordable price - Phone Translations (3 way conference call) service

WHAT IF SHE DOESN’T REPLY TO YOUR LETTER? 

If you are really interested in her, you should send your letter again.  She may have not received it the first time. Possibly, you wrote an uninteresting, uninformative letter about yourself or did not send a quality picture.  It is possible that having received your second letter, she will realize that you are seriously interested in her and then she will write back.  Do try a second time. We have seen it happen that the lady responded to the second letter and the couple ended up happily married.

WHAT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT CORRESPONDING WITH HER? 

If for any reason you decide that you no longer wish to correspond with a lady, you should let her know. Be tactful, gentle and kind. Tell her that you enjoyed corresponding with her and that she helped you to learn about her country but it seems to you that the two of you have different outlooks on life and you think you should both continue your search or let her know that you have already made your choice. Women do understand that you may be corresponding with someone else at the same time. Tell her that she is a wonderful lady and wish her luck in finding another deserving partner. Always behave gentlemanly and follow the golden rule:  “Treat others as you wish to be treated and your conscience will not bother you”.

If you put your profile in a newspaper or advertise with an agency and you receive a lot of letters from women, then, of course, you won’t be interested in all of them. Send each one you’re not interested in a short reply. Tell them thank you, but you are sorry not to be able to correspond and wish them luck finding other deserving gentlemen. It is always more polite to send even a very short reply than to leave letters unanswered.

WHAT IF SHE ASKS YOU TO SEND HER MONEY?

A decent Russian woman would never ask a man she doesn’t know to send her money. If early in your correspondence she asks you to send her money for personal needs (for phone installation so she can talk to you, buy her own computer so she can send you emails, for airline tickets or a visa to come be with you, to pay for medicine or to help someone in her  family who is in trouble, etc.), we highly recommend that you not send any money to a woman before you meet her in person. If she asks you for money to help her correspond with you (for a translator, Internet expenses, for mail forwarding, for phone calls, etc.) instead of sending her cash, we recommend you use our Express Mail Forwarding, Letter Translation or Phone Translation service. To avoid scams, you would pay us for these services and we would pay her agency. The services would then be absolutely FREE for your lady. If one of our ladies asks you for money, email her ID # to us immediately and include her letter asking you for money. We will check it and if it seems to be a scam, we will delete her profile from our database and will send her details to an Anti-Scam site where she will be placed on a Black List. If you have corresponded with your lady for a long time, met her in person and if you have serious expectations about marriage with this woman, then you can help her and send her money if you think it is necessary.

YOUR FIRST MEETING

Let me emphasize again the importance of your first meeting. It is actually difficult to overstate its importance. It can strengthen your relationship or ruin everything that you have worked so carefully to cultivate over many months. You should thoroughly go over everything in advance. Of course you would get your hair cut neatly. Think about what you will wear. It is not necessary to wear a coat and tie, but you need to show her that your meeting with her is a special and very important occasion. When you look at her, you will see how carefully she has prepared for your meeting!  She will see that you are a gentleman if you buy her flowers in advance or give her flowers when you meet. An inexpensive present, some perfume for example, will show her that you have been thinking about her. If she has children, do not forget about presents for them. She will certainly notice these gestures.

Be very attentive to her during your time together and tolerant of her language skills. 

Be prepared – it is customary in Russia for the man to pay for a meal, unlike in some other countries where it is common for each person to pay for themselves.

If you follow these suggestions, your success is all but assured.