Cross-provincial marriage service trial begins
A marriage certificate issuing ceremony is held in the Pudong New Area on Thursday.
More than 110 couples tied the knot across Shanghai on Thursday thanks to the "cross-province" marriage service trial that began being implemented, making distance no longer a barrier confronting out-of-town lovebirds.
Under the trial, even if neither of the couple has a Shanghai hukou, or household registration, they can still marry in the city as long as either side holds a temporary residence permit, or juzhuzheng, of the city.
Moreover, they can obtain a marriage certificate at any of the 16 marriage registration centers in the city, according to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.
However, the practice only covers residents on the Chinese mainland at present.
On Thursday, 118 out-of-town couples tied the knot in Shanghai and another 15 couples divorced.
As a super metropolis, Shanghai is home to 14.696 million people with local hukou and another 10.06 million from other parts of the nation, according to the bureau.
With the rapid social and economic development of the city, there was a strong demand for "cross-provincial" registration among people working, living and studying in the city as, until today, they needed to return to the places where their hukou was based to register their marriage, which is both time- and energy-consuming, as well as being inconvenient, officials said.
A couple enjoys a sweet moment together.
The new practice exempts out-of-town couples from the need to travel back and forth and lowers the cost of marriage registration, officials added.
On Thursday, marriage registration centers in the city prepared special marriage certificate issuing ceremonies to mark the date and deliver their best wishes for newlyweds.
Civil affairs authorities have also upgraded the city's marriage registration information system with a digital approach and functions, such as image collection, face recognition and e-signatures, in preparation for the new practice and to further lift the efficiency of certificate issuing.
In the Pudong New Area, several out-of-town lovebirds tied the knot at its marriage registration center on Thursday.
A ceremony takes place at the Pudong New Area Marriage Registration Center.
"We feel lucky to be among the first couples to receive our certificate in Shanghai under the trial," said a bridegroom surnamed Zhao.
He and his bride are natives of Jiangxi and Heilongjiang provinces but both work in Shanghai.
The couple picked the date months ago as it is Children's Day.
"We don't need to ask for leave to return to our hometown to obtain the certificate and the whole process is pretty efficient and convenient," said Zhao. "We are excited."
The center prepared a clay-making DIY activity for couples on the day.
In total, 21 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have been included in the trial by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China. Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Fujian are some of those on the list.
A couple shows off their DIY work.
