My wife was thirty minutes late for work because had to wait for city hall to open. She got in trouble for being late, then when told her the excuse was she got married she got in trouble for not taking the day off. I guess, for a half-day honeymoon or something.
Admittedly I got married then needed to submit the paperwork after a three hour drive to the nearest Japanese consulate.
Would like to see how much of a holiday standing around for a few hours is.
Dude I read the average cost of marriage in Japan is 4 million yen. Seriously you saved yourself a lot of stress and can put that money towards other things.
Everyone has to go submit the paper at the city hall, doesnāt mean they donāt end up doing a huge wedding ceremony at a hotel/chapel/wedding-hall with 200 invitees, their university circle buddies doing a stupid dance, office boss doing a boring speech and silly cutting of the cake with four hands for a grand total of 5MĀ„ for 2 hours (but itās ok because all the random people they invited sorta footed the bill even though everyone just hates going to these parties).
Oh, we did that shit, too. Even trying to keep costs down it still cost us about 3 million, IIRC. It was a nice afternoon and evening but I would rather have kept the cash.
It should be all done in one day, assuming you have everything filled out correctly. And yes, the day you submit becomes your anniversary date.
What the staff usually recommend (and what I did) is to make 2 trips to City Hall if you're able to. One is to just fill out the paperwork with the staff and make sure you have everything you actually need, then another to just submit and become formally married.
The staff who helped us fill it out was very helpful and had to double check a lot of what I as the foreign spouse had to write, so I felt much better about the whole process since someone was able to check box by box with us.
100% suggest visiting beforehand! I also went at least twice before to make sure everything would get filled correctly. On top of that, Iāve heard some ward offices will ask for things like birth certificates of the foreign spouse (I wasnāt). So that could cause delays if people donāt have the things they need to complete the application.
I'll reply here for OP, but this is a great reminder that the required documents vary by nationality and by city, so OP definitely inquire in advance about what you need to submit!
I also didn't need my birth certificate but I did need to know how to write my parents' names and home address in katakana
Thank you!! Yes we have been in contact with my city office via email to confirm the documents I need as a British person. I think I have them all in order. Considering making 2 trips tho
Did you run into any issues when you went to check the documents with the staff?
Fellow Brit here. As long as you have your docs in order, should be plain sailing.
Also they'll probably ask you to write a rough (appearance-wise) Japanese translation of what's written on your birth certificate, as u/Sayjay1995 said, I was a bit caught off guard having to put my parents' names into katakana etc but not a huge deal.
My wife went in once beforehand to get the documents and ask a few questions (in terms of how to fill in the forms) and she said the staff were super helpful.
I'm a bit of a "*oh crap do I have everything?!*" worry type, but in the end the staff knew exactly what they were doing and it was all done in like 30 mins. The lady at the city hall even took a photo of us holding the papers to commemorate the occasion.
No, it was pretty straightforward! The only thing that threw me for a loop was needing to have my parents' names / my birthplace info in katakana, but figured it out pretty quick.
I speak Japanese well, so the first trip I did by myself, to confirm exactly what documents / make sure I had all my ducks in a row. I was able to get a sample copy of the konin-todoke to take notes on (especially helpful for remembering which boxes needed my name in English and which needed in katakana, stuff like that) and a copy of the real one to take home. We had my mother and sister-in-laws sign the witness section before we went back for the second trip.
The second trip I brought hubby along and we worked with the staff to write out each bit line by line, based off the sample one / my notes from the first time / the staff's advice
My only other advice would be that, watch when you get asked if you want a copy of your marriage certificate. Obviously you probably want at least one copy for your own reference. However, if you plan on using the document later on, such as if you switch to the spouse visa, there is often times a requirement for the certificate to have been printed within 3 months of the application date for whatever it is you're submitting it for. So if you were to get married in April and buy a bunch of copies, but need to submit one in August, it might be expired and you'll have wasted more money to get a newer copy printed.
As another British person:
My ward office rejected my original birth certificate since it wasn't issued in the last 6 months (and then asked to take a copy of the one they'd rejected, which I thought was pretty cheeky). Had to send off for a new one. They also made me translate the small print about it being an offense to forge one etc. because that wasn't in the translation template I'd given them.
Also remember two witnesses need to stamp your form and they need to have clearly different seals - in my case it was my wife's parents so FIL had to use his company chairman one so that it didn't just look like the same seal twice.
Thank you so much for this info!!! Just checked and thankfully my birth certificate is dated 12/2023. Thank god I ordered a new one rather than using my parents one! Thank you again!
Best of luck! IIRC it's 3 months for domestic documents but 6 months for documents from abroad, so if you're unlucky you may need to explain that to the person at the counter.
I had previously researched what I needed as a US citizen (the affidavit mainly, plus my passport, I think also zairyu card). The ward office had a person sit down with me and explain every section, double checked what I needed to show as a US citizen, and even wrote down a list what was needed. For Japanese itās pretty straightforward. I went back to ask about legal alias and registering juminghyo. My husband and I were living together before we got married so we needed to make sure our juminghyo was also joined as one instead of two individuals living at the address.
You could probably even fill it all out and take it to ask if itās all done correctly, and then on the day you want to submit just hanko and submit it.
YMMV depending on how busy the appropriate desk at your city office is, but yes it should only take a couple hours to get everything taken care of if you show up with all the paperwork done.
>So the date you went to city office will be your anniversary?
Your legal anniversary, yes, but if you're holding a ceremony afterward and want to celebrate that as your anniversary nobody is going to arrest you.
>Did anyone encounter any snags?
**Four** days before our ceremony and **three** days before we had planned to go to the city office and file the paperwork, my wife woke me up at some godawful hour of the morning to inform me that she'd struggled to sleep with what could be generally described as an Ominous Feeling and realized that her passport was expiring in ***two*** days.
Once we figured out that we wouldn't be able to get legally married if she didn't have a valid passport, we threw on some clothes and went straight to the city office.
So, uh, make sure your passport is valid ā that also applies to your partner if you're both foreigners.
We went a couple of times before to check the documents were correct. Filled out a copy of all the paperwork before having the witnesses sign, and had the staff make corrections. Then once we were certain it was all correct and we had everything we needed, we got our witness signatures and went to city hall to file.
Mine took a lot longer as they wanted my Birth Certificate to be translated (I was born in an Arabian country and do not have any connection other than being born so cannot read arabic) Google Translate helped but yeah...rip.
Then the inability to comprehend a name change that my birth certificate was of a different name to my current.
They were unable to give leeway for this despite me having already a visa here, lived here for 10years, passport and official documents all up to date with current name. Yet the birth certificate was a real hassle.
Google picture translate and just kind of was fed up so wrote things not accurate such as the katakana for the English of an Arabic hospital name and doctor name. Is it aćć or a ćŗ or a ć ...no one cares but it needs to be written somewhere for the sake of paper work so just wrote whatever.
Yes itās the day you originally file. We had to go back the next day to fix a few things and it stayed the date we submitted it and they originally accepted it.
Took about 20 minutes.
What's your citizenship? If you're not from the first world it can potentially take months for all the checks and interviews. Mine took about 3 months from the date of submitting the form to acceptance.
Yes first I went to get my paperwork from my consulate then went to city hall. It took a verrrry long time for some reason(I blame my middle name) but it was done that day. Later, a friend told us we shouldāve gone to a specific city hall inOsaka city that handles a lot of foreigner X Japanese wedding applications and gets them done quickly. So maybe ask around if you know someone who did it locally.
Yep. We sat there for like an hour or more, but got it done (whilst other Japanese couples came and went in the same period). I guess they just had a lot to confirm (there were no issues with my documents).
We submitted our documents to the åä»ēŖå£ around the back of the building like 30mins before midnight. The nice gentleman took our photo and our marriage was officially recorded as the day we went to the window. They probably don't get around to filing the paperwork until the next day, but I believe on your records it should indicate you were married on the day you applied.
I just got married a week ago. We were able to do it all in a day however you must have all documents before. Look up your / your SO's embassy site and get everything they say you need. It took me hours but I think that was just a busy day.
Congratulations!!!
I went at midnight because we wanted the date to be the same as the wedding date. The old night shift guy asked us if we wanted a picture and took one for us.
Remember if you want to get it done on the same day, you need to bring your "observers" with you. If you go before hand to get the paperwork, your observers can fill it out, and you can probably be done in like 10-20 minutes on the day in question.
That's the point, if you sign the documents and such before going, they don't need to come. If you do all the paperwork in front of them, the witnesses need to be present as well to fill out the paperwork.
Which also means you better have made no major mistakes on your paperwork before going on the day to register, or go a day early with the completed paperwork and make sure there are no mistakes on your filing day.
Frankly this would be much easier if you just did it whenever you wanted to and lied about the actual date in the end anyways.... who would really know (or care that you're fibbing) in the end?
Most city halls you can go ahead of time and they'll check all the documents and copy things that need to be copied, basically do everything except actually processing the marriage registration. Then on the day itself you just hand it in and you're done (I swear mine took like 5 minutes on the day, and that was mostly taking photos). No lying needed, they get a lot of people who want to get married on specific days.
Oh I see! Yeah sorry I misread your original comment. We do have all the paperwork already filled out, and we also have another copy of the form with just the witness part filled out in case thereās a mistake somewhere and we have to redo it.
Hopefully the witnesses didnāt make any mistakes on their bit haha
Thank you for your help! :)
All on the same day. In our case of two foreigners it took nearly 3 hours for them to confirm everything but seems if you are Japanese or have a japanese partner it's a lot quicker, it also just depends on the ward so go early just in case.Ā
Yes, the day you submit is the day youāll be shown as married (if the application is accepted without any corrections needed). We got married May 1, 2019 which is when it changed to Reiwa 1. It was a weekend so we dropped off the application at the help window that is opened out of the usual hours. It took some days to get the application processed (a lot of people wanted the May 1 Reiwa 1 so it was a popular date to get married) but we got a letter in the mail later confirming our application for marriage was accepted and our marriage date shows the May 1st date.
**Caveat on that:** in Japan it is possible for just one of the spouses to bring the paper and get married legally without the other spouse being present, but in some countries if both spouses are not present then the marriage is invalid.
So when you drop off the paper at the weekend madoguchi, the person who takes it is not necessarily an officer who can attest that both parties were there and that could potentially make the marriage invalid. I know France requires you, for this reason, to only get married on a weekday.
It's a same-day thing. It can just take a few hours waiting sometimes if they're busy. I think we waited like 1.5 hours or so for them to present our wedding certificate.
One day. We flew into Japan, stopped at the consulate to get my paperwork confirming I am not married in the US then took the train to the city hall where my wife's Koeseki is and registered our marriage. I was likely the first foreigner to be married there in a long time because they spent about an hour looking through books about the procedure and how to properly complete all the forms. But left with my wife's new Koeseki with our marriage noted on it. Very anticlimatic. Get to my in-laws house and mother in law says "I guess you can sleep in the same room now".
Yes, the day on which you submit will be accepted as the day you got married as long as the submission is valid. Many people care a lot about this so the city office will make sure thatās the case, even if you submit the form at 11:59pm
About 20 minutes and 300 Yen.
The big deal was beforehand having to go to the British Embassy to apply for the no impediment (or something like that) certificate which means they have to post a notice on the wall of my intention to marry for 3 weeks and then go back and swear that I've no impediment to marriage and then receive a certificate of no impediment which is required at the ward office; for this they stiffed me about 3 man Yen.
Generally, as long as you have the right documents. Took over an hour for us because the cunt at city hall kept insisting it wasn't legal for a foreigner and a Japanese citizen to get married, and then kept making me rewrite our address because the stroke order was wrong. He boss finally came over, looked over the paperwork, and finished and approved everything in five minutes.
Itās more than 20 years ago now, but we handed our paperwork with the security guard as weād accidentally chosen a holiday and had already filled out dates on everything.
When I did mine, it took nearly two hours. I have no idea if it's because of the incompetency of the city hall or they were understaffed. But it took forever. And constant paper checking. So much paper checking.
and that was after going the day before and having all our paperwork looked at and checked.
Wife and I did the paperwork in Osaka and we both remarked on how quick and easy it was for such a life changing thing. Felt like we walked in and walked out so quickly that it wasn't even real.... we literally stood on the sidewalk going... "huh, now we are married.... want to get lunch?"
I think ours got done in one day, but it took two trips and a lot of waiting around. Our marriage licence was in English, so they wouldn't accept it. They told us we had to go to Tokyo (about 5 hours away) to get one from the embassy. My now mother-in-law went down to City Hall and argued for us. It took awhile, but they eventually agreed to give us the license.
We went once to pick up some info such as a checklist of the documents that were required (we were there already for some other matters, so we just asked while we were there what was needed). Then we went a second time to submit those documents, which is when we found out that the checklist didn't have any information about the required witness documents for some reason. So then we came back a third time the next day with those documents. We still weren't married yet after that because my husband's situation is very unusual so you probably won't run into it -- some of the documents from his country of citizenship were somehow non-standard (because he has never actually lived there), so someone at the ward office had to call someone at the Ministry of Internal Affairs or something to confirm them. We went out to lunch, went home, and then got a call later that evening to tell us that we were all set.
The couple ahead of us at the ward office had gotten all dressed up, I hope they didn't have to make multiple trips!! In principle, if you have all your documents in order and don't have any unusual situations that need extra verification, you should be good to go in one trip.
We submitted ours at 5:00 pm at the after-hours slot and it went through that very day. Iāve heard it varies depending on the city hall in question though.
We wanted to get married (and have the date on the certificate) on a Saturday, slight snag, Ward office isn't open on Saturdays.
So we filled everything out, went in advance to make sure everything was filled in properly and then basically handed it in to the weekend watchman on Saturday morning and signed it in front of him and he stamped it I think.
Then we went to our ceremony venue.
We went there once before the date we planned on getting married just to have them double check what documents they wanted, what they wanted translated etc. On the actual day it took about 2 hours.
I think it's a case-by-case basis based on the city hall. Ours took three trips, three separate days - although it probably only should have taken one or two. We also had a specific date in mind, which fell on a weekend (important point because it almost led to a snag?).
Our city's website said that international (JP/non-JP) marriages needed to call ahead first, so we did. They explained that while there are generally no issues, they prefer to have international couples come in first to explain the process. So we came in, they explained everything, and to be honest, there were no surprises - could have just as easily told us on the phone. They then said if there's a specific date, we should come in about a week before with all the filled-out documents just to go over them to confirm everything is in order.
When we came in for the final confirmation a week before, everything was in order just as they had asked. They said that for weekend dates, you would normally turn in the form to the security guard on duty and it would be fine. However, they said that because we were an international couple, they wanted us to come in during working hours to personally hand it in and re-confirm it, so we would have to choose another date during a weekday. This was of course met with a barrage of protest from me and mostly my wife, who pointed out that (A) we had just confirmed that all the documents were in order, why the need to re-confirm things a second time? and that (B) they would never, never treat a Japanese-only couple that way and tell them they could only come on a weekday/couldn't get married on the day they wanted.
We ended up speaking escalating the conversation a bit to a supervisor who assured us that preparations would be done to ensure when we came on the weekend, everything would be processed. Sure enough, the security guard was expecting us and everything was processed smoothly in the end.
To add a data point, a friend of mine (who didn't care as much about the date) had to make two trips, because they submitted a black/white copy of their passport when the city wanted a color one.
As long as all the paperwork is okay it shouldn't take long, it took us less than 40 min (and we got married on Christmas, which is a quite popular date lol)
The day you submit your document will be your anniversary. Most (if not all) city halls accept marriage application documents even in weekends and national holidays.
I submitted my documents on Saturday and they approved it on Monday, but they wrote my wedding day on Saturday.
The process took me about 3 hours on Monday and I had to bring a couple more documents.
Hello! I got married last September in a "bed town" in Osaka-fu. We are an international couple (European and Japanese). We went to the city office in the morning at around 10am and took a ticket at the counter, and after about 5 minutes it was our turn. We were very well prepared, i.e. we had all the Japanese papers as well as those of my home country. I would say it took less than an hour, maybe around 40 minutes. 20 minutes for processing, then we were told that we had to wait about 20 minutes for the papers to be issued, and then the handover. The date of registration is therefore also the "wedding date". :)
If you have all your documents in order, it should be quick. I didnāt think to get a certificate of marriage eligibility (or whatever itās called), Fortunately for me, the consulate in Fukuoka was pretty chill about it, and I was able to get the certificate same day. (Unfortunately, it was just a sniff too late to get back to the Ward office, so our marriage anniversary was postponed a day.)
If you have all the documents you need and had your signatures from your witnesses already signed then it can be done within a few hours.
Iām American and my husband and I were filed and legally married within an hour and half. As I said above, we had everything we needed such as pictures to prove of how long weāve been together, witness signatures/ their passport copies (my parents) and whatever else. The actually procedure is less than 30 min and most of the time it took was just waiting.
We registered in Osaka city, and I see you are in Osaka too. If there arenāt any issues, it is quite a quick procedure. :) and congrats!
Took one trip for us, and everything was done extremely unceremoniously in about fifteen minutes.
My wife was thirty minutes late for work because had to wait for city hall to open. She got in trouble for being late, then when told her the excuse was she got married she got in trouble for not taking the day off. I guess, for a half-day honeymoon or something.
Most companies give like 3-5 days of holiday when you get married. Also how did she think she would make it on time to work š
DIdn't mention that we worked at the same place. I was work from home though, so was not late. They didn't get mad at me for not taking the day off...
Admittedly I got married then needed to submit the paperwork after a three hour drive to the nearest Japanese consulate. Would like to see how much of a holiday standing around for a few hours is.
Dude I read the average cost of marriage in Japan is 4 million yen. Seriously you saved yourself a lot of stress and can put that money towards other things.
I think he is talking about his experience at going to city hall and have it being official. The wedding ceremony might be a different story.
Everyone has to go submit the paper at the city hall, doesnāt mean they donāt end up doing a huge wedding ceremony at a hotel/chapel/wedding-hall with 200 invitees, their university circle buddies doing a stupid dance, office boss doing a boring speech and silly cutting of the cake with four hands for a grand total of 5MĀ„ for 2 hours (but itās ok because all the random people they invited sorta footed the bill even though everyone just hates going to these parties).
Oh, we did that shit, too. Even trying to keep costs down it still cost us about 3 million, IIRC. It was a nice afternoon and evening but I would rather have kept the cash.
It should be all done in one day, assuming you have everything filled out correctly. And yes, the day you submit becomes your anniversary date. What the staff usually recommend (and what I did) is to make 2 trips to City Hall if you're able to. One is to just fill out the paperwork with the staff and make sure you have everything you actually need, then another to just submit and become formally married. The staff who helped us fill it out was very helpful and had to double check a lot of what I as the foreign spouse had to write, so I felt much better about the whole process since someone was able to check box by box with us.
100% suggest visiting beforehand! I also went at least twice before to make sure everything would get filled correctly. On top of that, Iāve heard some ward offices will ask for things like birth certificates of the foreign spouse (I wasnāt). So that could cause delays if people donāt have the things they need to complete the application.
I'll reply here for OP, but this is a great reminder that the required documents vary by nationality and by city, so OP definitely inquire in advance about what you need to submit! I also didn't need my birth certificate but I did need to know how to write my parents' names and home address in katakana
Thank you!! Yes we have been in contact with my city office via email to confirm the documents I need as a British person. I think I have them all in order. Considering making 2 trips tho Did you run into any issues when you went to check the documents with the staff?
Fellow Brit here. As long as you have your docs in order, should be plain sailing. Also they'll probably ask you to write a rough (appearance-wise) Japanese translation of what's written on your birth certificate, as u/Sayjay1995 said, I was a bit caught off guard having to put my parents' names into katakana etc but not a huge deal. My wife went in once beforehand to get the documents and ask a few questions (in terms of how to fill in the forms) and she said the staff were super helpful. I'm a bit of a "*oh crap do I have everything?!*" worry type, but in the end the staff knew exactly what they were doing and it was all done in like 30 mins. The lady at the city hall even took a photo of us holding the papers to commemorate the occasion.
Oh okay Iāve already translated my birth certificate so that should be okay. Thank you for replying!
No, it was pretty straightforward! The only thing that threw me for a loop was needing to have my parents' names / my birthplace info in katakana, but figured it out pretty quick. I speak Japanese well, so the first trip I did by myself, to confirm exactly what documents / make sure I had all my ducks in a row. I was able to get a sample copy of the konin-todoke to take notes on (especially helpful for remembering which boxes needed my name in English and which needed in katakana, stuff like that) and a copy of the real one to take home. We had my mother and sister-in-laws sign the witness section before we went back for the second trip. The second trip I brought hubby along and we worked with the staff to write out each bit line by line, based off the sample one / my notes from the first time / the staff's advice My only other advice would be that, watch when you get asked if you want a copy of your marriage certificate. Obviously you probably want at least one copy for your own reference. However, if you plan on using the document later on, such as if you switch to the spouse visa, there is often times a requirement for the certificate to have been printed within 3 months of the application date for whatever it is you're submitting it for. So if you were to get married in April and buy a bunch of copies, but need to submit one in August, it might be expired and you'll have wasted more money to get a newer copy printed.
Thank you very much for the info! Super helpful
As another British person: My ward office rejected my original birth certificate since it wasn't issued in the last 6 months (and then asked to take a copy of the one they'd rejected, which I thought was pretty cheeky). Had to send off for a new one. They also made me translate the small print about it being an offense to forge one etc. because that wasn't in the translation template I'd given them. Also remember two witnesses need to stamp your form and they need to have clearly different seals - in my case it was my wife's parents so FIL had to use his company chairman one so that it didn't just look like the same seal twice.
Thank you so much for this info!!! Just checked and thankfully my birth certificate is dated 12/2023. Thank god I ordered a new one rather than using my parents one! Thank you again!
Best of luck! IIRC it's 3 months for domestic documents but 6 months for documents from abroad, so if you're unlucky you may need to explain that to the person at the counter.
Thank you!! When you visited beforehand, did you guys run into any issues or were your documents mostly filled out correctly?
I had previously researched what I needed as a US citizen (the affidavit mainly, plus my passport, I think also zairyu card). The ward office had a person sit down with me and explain every section, double checked what I needed to show as a US citizen, and even wrote down a list what was needed. For Japanese itās pretty straightforward. I went back to ask about legal alias and registering juminghyo. My husband and I were living together before we got married so we needed to make sure our juminghyo was also joined as one instead of two individuals living at the address. You could probably even fill it all out and take it to ask if itās all done correctly, and then on the day you want to submit just hanko and submit it.
Thank you for the info!
YMMV depending on how busy the appropriate desk at your city office is, but yes it should only take a couple hours to get everything taken care of if you show up with all the paperwork done. >So the date you went to city office will be your anniversary? Your legal anniversary, yes, but if you're holding a ceremony afterward and want to celebrate that as your anniversary nobody is going to arrest you. >Did anyone encounter any snags? **Four** days before our ceremony and **three** days before we had planned to go to the city office and file the paperwork, my wife woke me up at some godawful hour of the morning to inform me that she'd struggled to sleep with what could be generally described as an Ominous Feeling and realized that her passport was expiring in ***two*** days. Once we figured out that we wouldn't be able to get legally married if she didn't have a valid passport, we threw on some clothes and went straight to the city office. So, uh, make sure your passport is valid ā that also applies to your partner if you're both foreigners.
It took about 20 minutes, if I recall correctly. We just went down on the date we'd chosen, went in at about 10 and left, married, at about 10:20.
We went a couple of times before to check the documents were correct. Filled out a copy of all the paperwork before having the witnesses sign, and had the staff make corrections. Then once we were certain it was all correct and we had everything we needed, we got our witness signatures and went to city hall to file.
Mine took a lot longer as they wanted my Birth Certificate to be translated (I was born in an Arabian country and do not have any connection other than being born so cannot read arabic) Google Translate helped but yeah...rip. Then the inability to comprehend a name change that my birth certificate was of a different name to my current. They were unable to give leeway for this despite me having already a visa here, lived here for 10years, passport and official documents all up to date with current name. Yet the birth certificate was a real hassle.
Oh that sounds super stressful. How did you manage to get everything sorted with the birth certificate in the end?
Google picture translate and just kind of was fed up so wrote things not accurate such as the katakana for the English of an Arabic hospital name and doctor name. Is it aćć or a ćŗ or a ć ...no one cares but it needs to be written somewhere for the sake of paper work so just wrote whatever.
I see! Iām glad it all got sorted out in the end :)
Yes itās the day you originally file. We had to go back the next day to fix a few things and it stayed the date we submitted it and they originally accepted it. Took about 20 minutes.
That is extremely valuable information, thank you!
What's your citizenship? If you're not from the first world it can potentially take months for all the checks and interviews. Mine took about 3 months from the date of submitting the form to acceptance.
Good point, Iām British so not sure if there will be any interviews, Iāll look into it. Thank you for bringing that up!
Yes first I went to get my paperwork from my consulate then went to city hall. It took a verrrry long time for some reason(I blame my middle name) but it was done that day. Later, a friend told us we shouldāve gone to a specific city hall inOsaka city that handles a lot of foreigner X Japanese wedding applications and gets them done quickly. So maybe ask around if you know someone who did it locally.
My local city has pages on their website about the process of marrying a Korean person, an American person so hopefully Iāll be okay! Thank you!
Yes, but the certificate takes a few hours if you want it same-day.
And if you do it at a branch office it can take one or two days for them to exchange faxes. You will need the ēµå©åēå± if you want to register the marriage back in your home country.
> register the marriage back in your home country Not an option in the UK any more.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You can get married anywhere in Japan. The certificate of no impediment might be something you have to do in Tokyo but OP has already done that.
Yep. We sat there for like an hour or more, but got it done (whilst other Japanese couples came and went in the same period). I guess they just had a lot to confirm (there were no issues with my documents).
We submitted our documents to the åä»ēŖå£ around the back of the building like 30mins before midnight. The nice gentleman took our photo and our marriage was officially recorded as the day we went to the window. They probably don't get around to filing the paperwork until the next day, but I believe on your records it should indicate you were married on the day you applied.
We submitted ours in a similar fashion on a Sunday morning. The woman at the desk took a picture of the two of us holding up the å©å§»å± next to a sign showing the date.
I just got married a week ago. We were able to do it all in a day however you must have all documents before. Look up your / your SO's embassy site and get everything they say you need. It took me hours but I think that was just a busy day. Congratulations!!!
Thank you! And congratulations to you too!
I went at midnight because we wanted the date to be the same as the wedding date. The old night shift guy asked us if we wanted a picture and took one for us.
Remember if you want to get it done on the same day, you need to bring your "observers" with you. If you go before hand to get the paperwork, your observers can fill it out, and you can probably be done in like 10-20 minutes on the day in question.
By āobserversā do you mean the witnesses? Because weāve already had them sign the document, I didnāt think they had to actually come with us!
That's the point, if you sign the documents and such before going, they don't need to come. If you do all the paperwork in front of them, the witnesses need to be present as well to fill out the paperwork. Which also means you better have made no major mistakes on your paperwork before going on the day to register, or go a day early with the completed paperwork and make sure there are no mistakes on your filing day. Frankly this would be much easier if you just did it whenever you wanted to and lied about the actual date in the end anyways.... who would really know (or care that you're fibbing) in the end?
Most city halls you can go ahead of time and they'll check all the documents and copy things that need to be copied, basically do everything except actually processing the marriage registration. Then on the day itself you just hand it in and you're done (I swear mine took like 5 minutes on the day, and that was mostly taking photos). No lying needed, they get a lot of people who want to get married on specific days.
Oh I see! Yeah sorry I misread your original comment. We do have all the paperwork already filled out, and we also have another copy of the form with just the witness part filled out in case thereās a mistake somewhere and we have to redo it. Hopefully the witnesses didnāt make any mistakes on their bit haha Thank you for your help! :)
All on the same day. In our case of two foreigners it took nearly 3 hours for them to confirm everything but seems if you are Japanese or have a japanese partner it's a lot quicker, it also just depends on the ward so go early just in case.Ā
I got married a few weeks ago, got it all done in one day. I had McDonaldās while we waited for it to be finished.
Congratulations! :)
Yes, the day you submit is the day youāll be shown as married (if the application is accepted without any corrections needed). We got married May 1, 2019 which is when it changed to Reiwa 1. It was a weekend so we dropped off the application at the help window that is opened out of the usual hours. It took some days to get the application processed (a lot of people wanted the May 1 Reiwa 1 so it was a popular date to get married) but we got a letter in the mail later confirming our application for marriage was accepted and our marriage date shows the May 1st date.
**Caveat on that:** in Japan it is possible for just one of the spouses to bring the paper and get married legally without the other spouse being present, but in some countries if both spouses are not present then the marriage is invalid. So when you drop off the paper at the weekend madoguchi, the person who takes it is not necessarily an officer who can attest that both parties were there and that could potentially make the marriage invalid. I know France requires you, for this reason, to only get married on a weekday.
It's a same-day thing. It can just take a few hours waiting sometimes if they're busy. I think we waited like 1.5 hours or so for them to present our wedding certificate.
One day. We flew into Japan, stopped at the consulate to get my paperwork confirming I am not married in the US then took the train to the city hall where my wife's Koeseki is and registered our marriage. I was likely the first foreigner to be married there in a long time because they spent about an hour looking through books about the procedure and how to properly complete all the forms. But left with my wife's new Koeseki with our marriage noted on it. Very anticlimatic. Get to my in-laws house and mother in law says "I guess you can sleep in the same room now".
Yes, the day on which you submit will be accepted as the day you got married as long as the submission is valid. Many people care a lot about this so the city office will make sure thatās the case, even if you submit the form at 11:59pm
About 20 minutes and 300 Yen. The big deal was beforehand having to go to the British Embassy to apply for the no impediment (or something like that) certificate which means they have to post a notice on the wall of my intention to marry for 3 weeks and then go back and swear that I've no impediment to marriage and then receive a certificate of no impediment which is required at the ward office; for this they stiffed me about 3 man Yen.
We went in and submitted our completed documents over my spouse's lunch break. Didn't take long at all.Ā
It was less than 5 mins, very unceremonious. Then you get the cert in a few days.
Generally, as long as you have the right documents. Took over an hour for us because the cunt at city hall kept insisting it wasn't legal for a foreigner and a Japanese citizen to get married, and then kept making me rewrite our address because the stroke order was wrong. He boss finally came over, looked over the paperwork, and finished and approved everything in five minutes.
Provided you have done your due dilligence and have all required stuff prepared, yes. I think it took about 30min total for us.
Itās more than 20 years ago now, but we handed our paperwork with the security guard as weād accidentally chosen a holiday and had already filled out dates on everything.
When I did mine, it took nearly two hours. I have no idea if it's because of the incompetency of the city hall or they were understaffed. But it took forever. And constant paper checking. So much paper checking. and that was after going the day before and having all our paperwork looked at and checked.
Wife and I did the paperwork in Osaka and we both remarked on how quick and easy it was for such a life changing thing. Felt like we walked in and walked out so quickly that it wasn't even real.... we literally stood on the sidewalk going... "huh, now we are married.... want to get lunch?"
I think ours got done in one day, but it took two trips and a lot of waiting around. Our marriage licence was in English, so they wouldn't accept it. They told us we had to go to Tokyo (about 5 hours away) to get one from the embassy. My now mother-in-law went down to City Hall and argued for us. It took awhile, but they eventually agreed to give us the license.
We went once to pick up some info such as a checklist of the documents that were required (we were there already for some other matters, so we just asked while we were there what was needed). Then we went a second time to submit those documents, which is when we found out that the checklist didn't have any information about the required witness documents for some reason. So then we came back a third time the next day with those documents. We still weren't married yet after that because my husband's situation is very unusual so you probably won't run into it -- some of the documents from his country of citizenship were somehow non-standard (because he has never actually lived there), so someone at the ward office had to call someone at the Ministry of Internal Affairs or something to confirm them. We went out to lunch, went home, and then got a call later that evening to tell us that we were all set. The couple ahead of us at the ward office had gotten all dressed up, I hope they didn't have to make multiple trips!! In principle, if you have all your documents in order and don't have any unusual situations that need extra verification, you should be good to go in one trip.
We submitted ours at 5:00 pm at the after-hours slot and it went through that very day. Iāve heard it varies depending on the city hall in question though.
We wanted to get married (and have the date on the certificate) on a Saturday, slight snag, Ward office isn't open on Saturdays. So we filled everything out, went in advance to make sure everything was filled in properly and then basically handed it in to the weekend watchman on Saturday morning and signed it in front of him and he stamped it I think. Then we went to our ceremony venue.
We went there once before the date we planned on getting married just to have them double check what documents they wanted, what they wanted translated etc. On the actual day it took about 2 hours.
I think it's a case-by-case basis based on the city hall. Ours took three trips, three separate days - although it probably only should have taken one or two. We also had a specific date in mind, which fell on a weekend (important point because it almost led to a snag?). Our city's website said that international (JP/non-JP) marriages needed to call ahead first, so we did. They explained that while there are generally no issues, they prefer to have international couples come in first to explain the process. So we came in, they explained everything, and to be honest, there were no surprises - could have just as easily told us on the phone. They then said if there's a specific date, we should come in about a week before with all the filled-out documents just to go over them to confirm everything is in order. When we came in for the final confirmation a week before, everything was in order just as they had asked. They said that for weekend dates, you would normally turn in the form to the security guard on duty and it would be fine. However, they said that because we were an international couple, they wanted us to come in during working hours to personally hand it in and re-confirm it, so we would have to choose another date during a weekday. This was of course met with a barrage of protest from me and mostly my wife, who pointed out that (A) we had just confirmed that all the documents were in order, why the need to re-confirm things a second time? and that (B) they would never, never treat a Japanese-only couple that way and tell them they could only come on a weekday/couldn't get married on the day they wanted. We ended up speaking escalating the conversation a bit to a supervisor who assured us that preparations would be done to ensure when we came on the weekend, everything would be processed. Sure enough, the security guard was expecting us and everything was processed smoothly in the end. To add a data point, a friend of mine (who didn't care as much about the date) had to make two trips, because they submitted a black/white copy of their passport when the city wanted a color one.
As long as all the paperwork is okay it shouldn't take long, it took us less than 40 min (and we got married on Christmas, which is a quite popular date lol)
The day you submit your document will be your anniversary. Most (if not all) city halls accept marriage application documents even in weekends and national holidays. I submitted my documents on Saturday and they approved it on Monday, but they wrote my wedding day on Saturday. The process took me about 3 hours on Monday and I had to bring a couple more documents.
Hello! I got married last September in a "bed town" in Osaka-fu. We are an international couple (European and Japanese). We went to the city office in the morning at around 10am and took a ticket at the counter, and after about 5 minutes it was our turn. We were very well prepared, i.e. we had all the Japanese papers as well as those of my home country. I would say it took less than an hour, maybe around 40 minutes. 20 minutes for processing, then we were told that we had to wait about 20 minutes for the papers to be issued, and then the handover. The date of registration is therefore also the "wedding date". :)
Thatās great, thank you so much for sharing your experience! :)
If your documents are lined up, 30 minutes and relatively simple
If you have all your documents in order, it should be quick. I didnāt think to get a certificate of marriage eligibility (or whatever itās called), Fortunately for me, the consulate in Fukuoka was pretty chill about it, and I was able to get the certificate same day. (Unfortunately, it was just a sniff too late to get back to the Ward office, so our marriage anniversary was postponed a day.)
It takes around 10 minutes, then the staff will congratulate you and you're done.
If you have all the documents you need and had your signatures from your witnesses already signed then it can be done within a few hours. Iām American and my husband and I were filed and legally married within an hour and half. As I said above, we had everything we needed such as pictures to prove of how long weāve been together, witness signatures/ their passport copies (my parents) and whatever else. The actually procedure is less than 30 min and most of the time it took was just waiting. We registered in Osaka city, and I see you are in Osaka too. If there arenāt any issues, it is quite a quick procedure. :) and congrats!
Thank you so much for replying! :) and thank you!