Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Registering Your Marriage In Korea
Registering Your Marriage In Korea
We got married in November last year, but were a little slack in registering our marriage with the Korean government because it required me visiting the Australian Embassy in Seoul. To register a marriage between an Australian and a Korean you need a few things.
- A certificate of no impediment (about 90,000 won from the Australian Embassy)
- Official translation of the certificate of no impediment (about 30,000 won)
- Your passport
- Your ARC
- Your Korean partners passport
- Government form (?????) signed by witnesses. Update: If you are under 20 years old it also has to be signed by parents or guardians. Thanks to Karson Tse for correcting me on this.
The Australian Embassy in Seoul is pretty easy to get to. It is right next to Gwanghwamun Station (the purple line, stop 533, exit 3)
The Australian embassy is in the building next to a bunch of flags (one of them being the Australian flag)
and opposite the statue of the famous Korean general Yi Sun-sin, famous for defending Korea against Japanese invasions.
The Australian embassy is on the 19th floor.
As you step out of the elevator you will be greeted by the Australian coat of arms.
After passing through security, I got busy filling out the paperwork for a certificate of no impediment.
All done. With my certificate of no impediment in hand we headed for the Korean government office (just around the corner from the Australian embassy) to register our marriage.
On the way to the government office to register our marriage, I stopped off at King Sejong the Greats statue. There was a TV crew there making some kind of travel documentary and they asked me if I would wave the Korean flag.
It is a boring government building in a busy back street behind the Australian embassy.
Grab a ticket and wait in line at the "foreigner corner".
Unfortunately, we were giving the bum steer with regards to the paperwork we needed. We were missing two things. Firstly we needed to get this form filled out by the Korean inlaws.
Secondly, we had to get my certificate of no impediment translated into Korean. Across the road from the government office were a bunch of translation services available, we chose one and went in.
30 minutes and 30,000 won later, the document was translated.
After we returned from our honeymoon in the Maldives, we got the form filled out by the Korean inlaws and headed to the government office in Daejeon to try and register our marriage again.
We wanted work station number 14.
15 minutes later, our paperwork was processed and we were on our way. We were told we could get a copy of our marriage certificate in about a week.
