Marriage License question

You get a lisence and have an officiant sign it after the ceremony then you get mailed your certificate. You need someone legally allowed to marry you to sign it.
Pastors and other religious figure heads are the more common ones, there are Justice of the peaces and officiants who do it. Some states allow people to officiate one wedding for a day and you can get a friend certified to do it for you.

Don't quote me on this, but this is my understanding. Usually a marriage license is what you need to pick up before your wedding and this just says you're legally allowed to marry each other - the county clerk's office or whatever verifies your identity and that you aren't currently married, etc. You get that, have a ceremony, the officiant signs your license, then they file your license, and you get a marriage cert that says you are legally married, officially husband and wife. You still have to have the ceremony, but you can check with your County and schedule a courthouse ceremony.

Here in UT, you would call the county clerk, schedule something, then you can get your license and ceremony all in the same day, then they file your license and you get your married cert sent to you. If you're just getting a license, you can just show up and pay the fee, then get married elsewhere. We're not religious and also kind of Buddhist, we're having a friend get ordained online to officiate, but again, check with your state because the legalities are different everywhere.

So you can totally have a court house wedding just keep in mind for legal purposes this is your wedding date and not the one you’re having your Chinese ceremony and reception. Because some people like to have it all together they have an officiant at the ceremony to do it all in once. You are totally fine just having a court house wedding and then the other wedding. As far as your license, you need to get this first sign it and then is when you can perform the ceremony whether is at the courthouse or at your wedding. Some state have different laws so the license is only valid for a certain amount of time. Say 30 days or 90 days, depends on your state. Is possible that what you read means the license was just valid for 15 days. Without the license you can’t get married. If you have a wedding at the courthouse you get your certificate right on site for the most part. If you have an officiant do it then they mail this to the clerk office and they send you the certificate later on the mail.

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Oh thats good to know. Our other friend who had a wedding 3-4 years ago had one of their friends as their officiant. As far as I heard its pretty easy to become one. Good to know! I just wanted to make sure that if we only signed our license we would still be legally married. Id hate to have skipped that part then realize i wasn't legally married

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We were planning to go to a courthouse and just sign the paper (no formal ceremony) on September 19. Our actual wedding date (tea ceremony and reception) is on September 28.

I am not sure what the process is to signing the certificate because I remember somewhere that you also need a witness or two (before this post I assumed this took place of an officiant).

So if we sign the paper on the 19th and have an officiant on the day of our wedding (the 28th) the officiant would sign it that day and send it in? And if we were to do it that day then our legal wedding date would be the 28th?

View Quoted Comment Yes, this is correct! You would be going in to get your marriage license (allowing you to marry) on the 19th. The officiant performs the ceremony on the 28th and s/he signs the license you receive along with the witnesses. The officiant then returns this to the county clerk within 10 days and it is filed. The 28th would be your official wedding date. My FIL officiated and our mothers signed as witnesses.

You should call the county clerk's office and ask. Each area has different rules. Some places you have to get married in the same county as where you applied for the lisence

View Quoted Comment Oh sounds great!

We are having our tea ceremony/reception on Sept 28th at a hotel. We wanted to get the marriage license on Sept 19th so at that time we wouldnt need a courthouse ceremony since we will have a ceremony and reception on the 28th. We can probably see if we can find a friend who is already an officiant or have one apply to be one .

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Thanks for confirming . Its nice that your mothers signed as witnesses! Does there have to be 2? (I'm sure either way we can find someone to sign it but I'm just wondering lol).

View Quoted Comment I think this varies. The county we married at only required one. However, the FIL asked both of them to write their name on the same line. 🤣

View Quoted Comment I had a destination wedding so I did a courthouse wedding. My state requires to have a marriage license for 3 days before the “courthouse wedding” the license is what you actually sign and the day you’re applying for it.

The day of the actual courthouse wedding you do need to say the standard vows. You do not need to exchange rings or do your own vows if you don’t have too. But they do ask if you take that person in marriage and so on. The marriage certificate which is already signed the day you request the license is then stamp and seal with the date so in your case would be September 19. If you have the officiant at your tea ceremony then he’ll stamp and seal as September 28. Regardless you need to go to a clerk office to get the marriage license before hand. My advice is to read about the laws and requirements in your state as it might be different. You might need the witness but my state didn’t require this.

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I will call to double check. We were planning to apply for the license in the same county we will be getting married in . It is also the county we currently live in (though my driver license is in a different county because I havent had time to change my address on my DL).

Getting the marriage license allows you to get married it doesn’t make you married. Every state has a different timeline on when you can get the license, in California you can get it 90 days before but in Oklahoma it can only be 10 days before. You wouldn’t sign the marriage license until after the officiant performs the ceremony. Some states allow someone to get ordained online to marry you but some states it’s not legal so calling your county clerk would be the best source of information. But you’ll need an officiant who can legally perform a wedding in your state.

Applying for a license does not equal getting married. Every state has different rules regarding: how long you must wait between applying for a license and being able to wed, how long the license is for, and who must sign it. A witness does not take place of an officiant— the officiant is THE one who legally marries you. This could be anyone legally qualified to perform marriages in your state— a religious person, a justice of the peace, an ordained friend, or a judge at the courthouse. Some states will require a third party (witness) at the “wedding” (whatever platform it may actually be) to observe and verify you were both fit to agree to marry one another and vowed to do so before an officiant, but not every state requires this. Agree with others that your best bet is to call your county clerk to get area-specific info.

In my state (MA), we had to apply for the license at least 3 days before the [legal] wedding itself— meaning we went in, submitted forms, and three business days later, picked up the license. We weren’t married yet. We weren’t married until the day our officiant oversaw our vows and signed the license (in fact, in MA— she was the ONLY one who had to sign that document). In MA, the licenses are only valid for 60 days, so if we applied for a license, picked it up, and never met with an officiant& had it signed, it would just become null and void after those 60 days and we would not be married. (Even if we had said vows in front of the officiant and she had not signed it nor returned it to the city clerk, we would still not be considered legally married)

View Quoted Comment You can also get a justice of the peace if you want to keep it non denominational/religious

Hello everyone. Thank you for your input! Actually we found out in Orange County we can go to the court and have a ceremony there ( where or marriage license will be signed) for only 29 dollars. Looked up how much it would cost for a friend to become an officiant and it was 120. We went with the court ceremony instead .