What did you use to sign the wedding license? Special Pen?

You don’t keep the license. It gets turned in and you receive a certificate. (At least that’s what happened for us). So I wouldn’t stress about which one to use.


The lady that gave us our license had us sign it when we got it. So we didn’t even sign it day of. Our officiant and wittiness signed it. I didn’t even realize it and had to ask during the reception to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

We didn't get to keep ours. We had to mail it in to the clerk's office. We did use a calligraphy pen to sign our Ketubah (the religious document for a Jewish wedding), since that is now a piece of artwork hanging on the walls in our apartment.

As others said, we didn’t get to keep our wedding license. In fact, husband and I had to sign it right there at the desk when picking it up! Only the officiant and witnesses signed it fresh on our wedding day. For photos though the photographer captured our witnesses signing live and then had my husband and I pretend to sign it. 😂😁

We didn’t even sign it in our state— only the officiant signs in MA!

View Quoted Comment I'm in MA too, I was so surprised when we didn't have to sign it! Is your marriage certificate also your (filled out with a typewriter) marriage license photocopied onto a larger piece of paper with a raised seal, or that specific to Boston city hall?

We also didn't sign our marriage license, and I'm I'm NJ. When we applied for it, we signed some paperwork, but the actual license was signed by the officiant and 2 witnesses.

Our officiant had to sign ours in black (which definitely limits your pen choices) so I put a working black pen with the license on our table before the ceremony. It was a thin, felt tipped pen, which is a good choice if you want a suggestion, but I just chose it because it was available.

I'd stick with pens with black ink (they may have special instructions for you on this when you apply for your license), and if you're looking for something nice maybe use a fountain pen? (But definitely practice a few times first! )

View Quoted Comment Haha yup— looks the same! 🤣

My husband, our officiant and I just used a random black pen they had at our venue, lol. We had to sign 2 licenses. One for the courthouse to keep and one for us to keep. We also request certified copies when I turned in the courthouse copy and they inputted our information into the system and printed them right then for me. The certified copies were for when I changed my name at the DMV, through work, our bank accounts and other things. We have our original copy and our remaining certified copies in our small fireproof filing cabinet with our other important documents.

We live in SC.