when an American citizen gets married in Japan

[lovecarvel 0]

Hello everyone! I have just registered this forum and this is my first posting. I appologize in advance if the same or similar questions have been already brought here by someone else.

I am Japanese living in Japan and my boyfriend is American living in the U.S. We are planning to get married in Japan in coming January. I would like to make sure that there is no problem for him to visit Japan with no visa and get married in Japan. He will be in Japan only for 12 days or so, and we will get married during his stay, then he will go back to the U.S and we will start CR-1 visa process.

As reading the US Embassy website, I am pretty sure it is no problem, but I've seen some people say "American citizen who wants to get married to Japanese citizen has to live in Japan at least for 6 months" in their blog or something, which made me a little nervous.

Does anyone know what the truth is? Any experience?

Also I learned that there is a part to be filled out the American citizen's living address in Japan on the marriage license (Affidavit of Competency to Marry) form which need to get notalized by US embassy before going to the city hall. Does anyone know if he can leave the part blank?

We are planing to go to the US embassy to get the form notalized as soon as they open in January, then I will translate it into Japanese, then we will go to the city hall of where I live to get married. We will get this process done within a few days during his stay in Japan.

Since this will be the first step of the long process we will take to get a visa, I would like to make sure we are doing right.

I will appreciate your advise.

Thank you!

[jkelly07 120]

if your in japan 6 months i'm not sure about japan for married 6 months you can file 1-130 DCF at the consulate check into that, if thats the case good get married there file 1-130 DFC you should be approved very fast some counties don't use DFC, so check it out.

[lovecarvel 0]

Thank you for your reply. It might be a silly question, but what do DCF and DFC stand for?

My boyfriend will start filing I-130 after he goes back to the U.S. As a ealier step than I-130 filing, I would like to know if he need to live in Japan for at least 6 months to get married in Japan or he can just vist with no visa and get the marriage process done.

If he has to live in Japan for 6 months, it is impossible for us, so we have to find out other way...

[tokyo.lovers 6]

i am not sure about the 6 month requirement? i had lived in japan 2 years, visa expired, i left for 2 months, went back for 1 month, got married, then came back to the USA.

BEST PLAN:

have him be in japan for the required time to APPLY IN TOKYO!!! if you apply in japan the visa only takes a few months to process. but he has to be in japan for a certain amount of time and also cannot leave after applying. it is sort of like a game. we tried this, but we failed since i told them i would go back to the USA. i should have said i would stay longer....