Getting legally married prior to our main wedding has a lot of benefits.
To start with, we now no longer have to be in Ireland a week prior to the wedding in order to register. This means, more time for our honeymoon! Additionally, I’ll be able to take my time in changing my last name and doing all of the necessary paperwork involved.
Among the many other reasons, the main benefit is that Ger will be able to apply for his Green Card. By doing it in advance, Ger will be legally able to enter back into the U.S. after the wedding!
Since we decided to have the legal ceremony over Christmas, we’ve had to put everything together rather quickly. I immediately called up the local courthouse to see exactly what we needed to do.
via Ruby Press
Like many other states, there is a (3) day waiting period from the time you apply to when you actually can pick up your license. I was able to get this waived due to our short time in Pennsylvania. Normally I would have had to send a letter to the court-house requesting a waiver and our reason why. Luckily for us, they were able to approve this over the phone!
We’ll both need to present photo identification, such as a driver’s license, state ID, or passport. Social Security numbers will be requested.
Another formality I was concerned about was residency and being able to apply. I found out that they don’t require us to be current residents of PA to get our marriage license at the court-house. Score!
via Duryea
For the county that I’m from, the cost will range between $40-$75 and they only accept cash. Not a bad cost for freedom!
We’ve decided to get married by a justice of the peace that is a family friend. It will be great to have someone there that is a familiar face.
We’ll be driving back to Pennsylvania on the 23rd, getting our marriage license on the 24th and then have our ceremony on the 27th! It’s going to be a quick process, especially with the holidays in-between.
Did your state’s marriage license regulations create a challenge for you or was it smooth sailing and stress free?
We have recently started talking about getting secretly hitched before our actually wedding. We don’t want to spoil anyone’s expectations at the actual wedding so we are keeping it a secret. We are having the wedding on the east coast but we live on the west coast. We would have to get there 7-10 days in advance to get the marriage license and that is even cutting it close. Taking that much time off of work might be tough. This way we don’t have to worry about the legal stuff and we can just have a good time. Plus I get to wear two outfits.
We planned a Boston wedding and we were both from out of state in-between school semesters. We could not do anything in advance to waive the 3 day waiting period. urgh. We had to appear in front of a judge and physically ask for a waiver. I think the judge was happy to have this marriage waiver to deal with instead of the divorce issue prior to us.
I have been very disappointed to find out that in the state of Connecticut people can not have a friend or relative get ordained and marry you. I imagined it much like how Joey married Chandler and Monica on “Friends”. I loved the idea of having my younger brother marrying us and my middle brother writing the ceremony. It felt so much more meaningful that way, as we are both not very religious. My fiancé and I have talked about getting married secretly before the wedding so we could still have my brother oversee the ceremony and it would also allow me to get health insurance as I am unable to through my job. Is there an easy way to have a quick secret ceremony to just get legally married?
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@anna, i bet you could just go to your local city hall? that way you could get it legally done and then at your wedding do whatever you wanted!
That’s exactly what myself and my husband-to-be/ legal husband did! We will announce to the world that we are married when we have our Bali wedding next July. Life has been very easy for us as Mr and Mrs on paper as we currently live together.