So me (32F) and my fiancé (34M) are planning to move to Japan.
I am a Japanese citizen, and he is Filipino. We met in the Philippines and have been together for 3 years.
It’s a bit messy getting married in the Philippines (my mom has a different religion from his parents, and they are fighting over which wedding should be done and it’s draining to figure out) so I would just like to avoid that fiasco for now. We personally don’t mind whichever, we just wanna get married. Civil wedding for me is the way to go.
So I thought, maybe it’s better to get married in Japan. The thing is, I have no idea if he could marry me on a tourist visa.
I was originally planning to move there this March 2023 to get started on the Certificate of Eligibility (if we end up getting married in the Philippines), but if we can get married at a city hall in Japan, he could come with me on a tourist visa to avoid the whole which-religious-wedding-to-do mess.
Is there anyone here who can please advise me?
1 comment
In order to get married in Japan the foreign partner needs to provide a document that certifies their eligibility to marry.
According to the Philippines embassy, they only issue such documents to legal residents of Japan:
https://tokyo.philembassy.net/consular-section/services/civil-registration/legal-capacity-to-contract-marriage-certification/#nav-cat
I’m not sure what sort of document your fiance could bring with them from the Philippines that would count. It may be easier to do a secular resort wedding up in Cebu or something. Maybe take a cruise and have the captain marry you when you’re in international waters.
-edit-
Seems the document your partner would need is a CENOMAR – https://psa.gov.ph/civilregistration/requesting-civil-registry-document/cenomar
You’d then need to have it translated into Japanese.