Legally marry before wedding?

A courthouse wedding is clearly your safest alternative. But here is an article that discusses the status of marriages performed by officiants with online ordinations in Illinois:

https://www.illinoislegalaid.org/legal-information/who-can-perform-wedding

You should check with your local courthouse regardless but as far as I know they do have to be ordained, legally, to perform the wedding aka the paperwork but yes you can go to the courthouse a couple days before then have the friend perform the ceremony for the wedding.

They have to be ordained but from what I understand it doesn't take too long or cost to much to do that. I have been looking into courthouse weddings myself. It seems to me to be easier to just get your marriage certificate a day or two before or whatever your state requires as the waiting period, and then do it at the courthouse. I don't think it has to be a religious ceremony.

We're thinking about doing this ourselves! We just thought it might be nice to get married alone, just the two of us, and then the next day do the big shindig with everyone else. Part of me thinks it will be super romantic to have a secret nobody else knows about (a la Pam and Jim in The Office).

But we'll probably end up just doing the one ceremony since the day before will be so hectic. If you have time for it, do the courthouse wedding - if you are questioning whether or not your friend is legally qualified to do it, it could invalidate your marriage later (per the article posted by 2d Bride).

Your ceremony must be performed by someone ordained or legally able to perform marriages in your state. Do what we did and just have a civil ceremony (our pastor did ours) and my son will do the "SYMBOLIC" ceremony at our wedding. No paperwork, no signing of documents because we are already legally married.