Marriage in Japan - Which is the marriage certificate ?

[mikaeru]

Hello,

I'm a bit confused as to what we should include in the application, between the kon'in todoke and the kon'in todoke no juri shomeisho.

The kon'in todoke (I guess) is the one we filled up together at her city's office, and it includes our birth dates, our names, signatures, and my affidavit I got at the canadian embassy in Japan.

Then, her office sent us by post a kon'in todoke no juri shomeisho, which we decided to get translated by a translators order in Canada. However, we noticed that this one does not show up our signatures, only our names...

The application package just states "Marriage Certificate" but doesn't say more about the exact name of the document, so we're worrying a bit.

This forum prevents me from sending links, but we found a link on canadainternational.gc.ca saying that the kon'in todoke no juri shomeisho might be the good one, but is that so (since it doesn't have our signatures) ?

Once your marriage is registered, you should ensure that you keep an original of the Certificate of Marriage Registration ("kon-in todoke no juri shomeisho" or 婚姻届の受理証明書) that you are issued as this becomes your proof of marriage. While you can contact your normal province of territory of residence in Canada to see if they will register your marriage and issue you a certificate, you should be aware that most vital statistics offices will only register marriages that are solemnized within their jurisdiction.

We were thinking of maybe scanning the kon'in todoke as well and include it with a home-made translation (since we did translate the juri shomeisho by a professional) just to prove that the signatures matches the rest of the application.

Any advice ? Thanks!

 

[sanda]

I think you are in right way; kon'in todoke no juri shomeisho is more official according to your quote from japan.gc.ca.
shomeisho (means 'certification' or 'confirmation') sounds more legit than todoke (means 'order') for me.

A translation business website says

婚姻の証明として翻訳を依頼されることが一番多いのは、「婚姻届受理証明書」です。
これは、結婚した人が届けた婚姻届を市役所等で受取り、形式的な要件が整っていればこの届けを「受理」しますが、この受理したことについて、市長等が「確かにこの2人の婚姻届を受理しました」という認証をしたものです。

http://www.translators.jp/certificate/marriage/

Plus, Canadian marriage certificate doesn't contain the signatures neighter:
https://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/marriage/certificate.html

 

[DJC_06]

Refer to question #8 on the Japan-specific checklist:

"A marriage certificate, birth certificate, Family Register or certified official copy and a translation of your unaltered "Koseki Tohon" and "Kaiseigen Koseki Tohon" (all names in the register, even the ones that have been removed due to death, marriage, change of residence, etc) including details of your birth, marriage and divorce (if any) must be submitted."

The operating word, the most important thing within the above, is that bolded "or". Read things carefully to spot these sorts of differences. You do not need to supply any sort of marriage certificate. Also, I doubt they will accept a konintodoke as proof of your marriage. There is nothing preventing someone, even me, from getting a konintodoke, filling it out, and sending it to the immigration authority. They're looking for an officially produced document. What fulfills that requirement? The koseki tohon and kaiseigen koseki tohon; both.

The koseki, family register, will list you as part of the family alongside your spouse. As only municipal offices in Japan can issue these, it's a great deal more official than other documents you can get.

The kaiseigen koseki tohon is a more advanced version of the koseki. It lists dates, names, places of residence, etc. You might have to request this from your spouse' family's hometown and have it sent to you via mail.

When doing our application from Japan (my wife is a Japanese citizen), we had our koseki and kaiseigen koseki tohon translated professionally and notarized as per directions concerning translations we found elsewhere. You cannot translate any of your key documents yourself.