Marriage laws in Pa

If you want to know if it's legal you should call your county to find out. I personally wouldn't trust the advice of internet strangers to know if you wedding is going to be valid or not... Just call.

I didn't know this
I'm in PA too
The lady doing my wedding used to be a preacher but she retired so no doesn't run a church now
I' interested in answers
We might have a JP there too I'm thinking so either way it should be legal

My step dad is licensed by the ULC and was going to marry us, but we decided to have someone else do it as soon as we saw that. I want to make sure my marriage is 100% legal and not find out down the road that it’s not. He was going to go to the courthouse and ask, but we decided against it.

I inquired about this at the coun

Sorry, hit the reply button by mistake lol!
I inquired about this at the county clerks office also. I live in Luzerne county. My niece was ordained thru Universal Life. We were advised not to do it. The laws are changing by county (it's not valid in 2 counties now). They said the laws in Luzerne county will change at some time & the marriage will be null and void. Also said we may not even be notified if it is voided. They did tell us we can get a Quaker liscense. Basically you marry yourselves. You need 2 witnesses & no officiant because you do it yourselves. They told us that law will not change. I was too nervous about the whole thing so a local magistrate is marrying us.

View Quoted Comment

Exactly this.

View Quoted Comment

Precisely this... I don’t understand why these questions are posted here. Call the local county clerk and get the information, not ask an Internet forum about the legalities of a friendor performing the ceremony. We’re not qualified to answer these questions regarding marriage laws. Only your local county clerk is...

This is not a risk I would want to take unless the laws where very clear. In PA it varies from county to county so you need ot call the county clerk here you will be married. But its better to err on the side of caution and jsut use a professional

Each county is different, so call the county in which you're getting married in. You can always marry yourself in PA with a self marriage license, which usually costs more money, depending on the county. Also the fees per marriage license varies per county as well.

Call the county, though I can't imagine you're only allowed to be married by someone with a religious affiliation.

View Quoted Comment This is what I'm thinking too
I'm from pa so wondering
But I thought you bought a marriage license (as is the law) and the ceremony is the religious part of it
As long as you have the marriage certificate right, the law, the preacher shouldn't matter for it to be legal

"With a regular congregation" would not described anyone ordained by mail, unless somehow they were conducting services every week and had people attending.

I would suggest getting a self-uniting license. You can then get married just with an agreement between the two of you, without an officiant at all.

View Quoted Comment

Nope, that's not the way it works. See this article about issues couples have faced with officiants ordained online:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/fashion/05marry.html

View Quoted Comment I think I'm ok then
We are being married by a preacher who was the preacher at my church when I was a child
So she wasn' ordained online she had a congregation for many years
Then she retired but she said she can do it

I checked with the clerks, and the information I got was "you can have a minister officiate your wedding (ULC) BUT It's in courts now, they can declare it invalid." They told me they wouldn't challenge it, if someone said they were a minister, then they are BUT the validity of your marriage COULD (not likely, but there is a possibility.) be pronounced invalidated. So she said if you want to take the chance you can, and you will be valid, but in the event a court rules it otherwise you are not married and said if your marriage comes into question you have to then prove your minister preached to a congregation, and they won't tell you, like another poster mentioned. So you are opening up a can of worms that can potentially be a headache in the future.