Officiant refuses to file our marriage license?!?

Can you just give him the money since he says he doesnt have enough to take care of this issue? I am assuming he was legally allowed to marry you?

I dont know much about CA laws, but if worse comes to worse can you just go to the courthouse and get "married" there to make it official? Goodluck! I'm sorry your BIL is being a pill

Go over with the $29. Drive him yourself.

~ congrats

In Fla., the license must be returned to the courthouse within 10 days after the ceremony. Is there a similar deadline in Calif.?

OMG. Get it done, give him the money if you have to. My brother and his wife got married in GA and she said she would file the licence but put it off. It worked out in his favor though cause the time expired and they weren't officially married when she showed her true colors. There's way more to the story, but I said that to say this, even if you have to go to the court house and marry again get it done. Good luck. It'll be a funny story to tell your future children.

Congrats!

Indeed, take $29 and drive him to the courthouse. Today.

In VA the license must be returned to the courthouse within 5 days. For various reasons it makes sense that there is a deadline.

The deadline for filing a marriage license in California is 10 days. Unfortunately, you have passed that time. I'm not sure what the consequences are of that (fortunately, that's never happened to one of our CA officiants). Your new brother-in-law is in violation of state law.

Quite honestly, your best bet might be to get a new license, then retain a professional wedding officiant to do a quickie ceremony ("Do you?" "I do." "I do.") and then have them file the license for you. Unless the County Clerk has some creative ideas, that's the best that I an come up with.

Alternatively, you can tell the county that you lost your license. They will send an affidavit to your brother-in-law to have him fill it out saying he did indeed complete the ceremony. It will cost more than $29, and be a lot more hassle, but your wedding date will be correct and you can avoid the 10 day issue.

Good luck!

Write the check. It's 29 bucks. Get his sorry ass in a car, drive to the clerk and get it over with. He's now committing a crime; it's not just some technicality.

In NJ, once I say you're married,you are. I can't NOT file a license, because, as I mentioned, it's a crime. If a license is never filed, the issuing clerk calls me (this has only happened once, and it had been filed, but that's another story....) to find out what happened to it.

It's not a joke, even though he is treating it as one.

Go get "remarried" at the courthouse and call it a day. It will be more money but it will be done the right way and it will be official.

Wow, I guess BIL couldn't figure out a way to round up the $1.50 it costs to buy some freaking white out, either.

The money spent on the wedding celebration was NOT wasted - you still celebrated your love and shared the day with your loved ones, didn't you? Now you just have to take care of the legality.

Go get legally married at the courthouse and chock it up to a lesson learned for yourself, and possibly for some future brides on here.

You can't use white out on a license in most states. You also can't just let a license go unused; these are legal, regulated documents. They just can't go missing.

Thanks for the answers everybody. I forgot I posted this until just now. We didn't have the money either, but knew for a fact that he did and was lying, and he finally filed it on Friday.