Do you have to have a priest sign the marriage licence?

Most churches will not do this. If they're performing your wedding ceremony, they'll require the marriage license. You can get married and then file to have a convalidation (blessing) performed, but not all priests will agree to do this.

Priests are legal officiants and bound to respect the law. They sign the license and mail it to the county or other government agency.

I don’t know of any priest that would ever do this. They are required to sign the marriage license and submit it. However, just because a priest signs your marriage license does not mean that it is being “validated“ under that religion. Spiritually, your marriage is validated the moment you say your vows. The marriage license is simply the legal validation. If you are OK with going through an entire Catholic ceremony, then I don’t think a priest signing the marriage license should matter. Also, I would look into the details on having a priest perform a Catholic ceremony for a non-Catholic. I know it is done, but I’m not sure what additional steps you have to go through

The person officiating the ceremony has to sign the license. It is a legal document. If you don't want a priest to sign it, you will have to find another non-denominational officiant to marry you.

The officiant who performs the ceremony has to sign and send in the license.


If this sort of thing matters do you, you should look into the specific requirements for getting married via a Catholic wedding. A lot of churches require you to take classes on Catholicism, promise to raise your children Catholic, etc. It's a time commitment.
I'd also do premarital counseling to hash out how to handle differences in religion and how to raise any children in what religion.

Are you getting married inside a church? Because if you’re having a Catholic ceremony and you are not Catholic but your partner is then you have to be baptized Christian in order to have the ceremony

If a Catholic priest is officiating, even though it is not considered a Sacrament, he would still be the officiant and would have to sign.

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There's an option for Catholics and non-Christians to wed in the Church but not the full mass with Eucharist. I don't think she is as interested though.

All the above comments are correct. I dont know if your hubby is okay with this, or even the church, but maybe a courthouse ceremony before and then the church wedding?? Even then it sounds like a big hassle, i dont really think its worth it. Maybe find a different way to incorporate your beliefs, like some sort of ceremony at the reception

View Quoted Comment This is not true.
You just have to get special permission.

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Thanks Sarah! My fiancé did not know about convalidation's but I think that is the way we are leaning towards: a vow ceremony and then a sacrament ceremony. We just moved so he is looking at new parishes anyway - we will definitely keep this in mind when talking to priests. Thank you so much!

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Cece, thank you for taking the time to comment! We are already intending on having a a Catholic ceremony for a non-Catholic. Isn't marriage all about compromise? Although its not that I'm okay with going through a catholic ceremony, I would absolutely prefer not to do it. But it is important to my soon-to-be husband and therefore its important to me that we honor his beliefs. And it's my request that religion does not hold a place in our legal validation. And in this case, I am asking that a priest doesn't put his name on our marriage license. The church requires 2 witnesses for each party but my state does not and I don't have 2 people I want putting their name as a witness to my love for my fiancé. I know that that is not going to be a common request for catholic marriages but this is an interfaith marriage and I want it to be respected.

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Hi Nay! I have recently learned that you can have your marriage blessed by the catholic church after you are already married. So I think we have decided that we are going to have a vow ceremony, have someone important to us officiate it & sign the license and then have the sacrament ceremony afterwards. The headcount for the church sacrament & the vow ceremony is less than 15 people so I dont think it sounds like a big hassle for us. Thank you so much for your response anyway!

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Hi Michelle, We are already intending on having a a Catholic ceremony for a non-Catholic. Ie. not the full mass. But it's not about the mass or catholic ceremony. Its the fact that I do not want the priest to sign my marriage license. I know that's a hard thing to accept if you've been raised catholic but me and my fiancé think its best for us and wanted to know if anyone else had any experience or knowledge on the matter. Thanks for commenting anyway though!

Hello Savannah, in the Catholic church marriage is a sacrament. God is giving you grace to live out your marriage. Yes, a Catholic and a non-Christian can be married in the Church. As a Catholic, it is very important to do so. Also, I'm thinking that you could only do convalidation if it was desired after you were already married (but I don't think the priest would agree to planning the convalidation while you are still engaged). Did you know that you can have a Catholic celebration of matrimony without the Mass? It is shorter, and maybe you would prefer it. What if you had the non-religious vow ceremony after the Catholic celebration of matrimony? And then it could lead into your evening celebration?

I think it's really important for you and your fiance to discuss your beliefs of how religion will be a part of your lives in marriage. It is ok for you to be different religions, but it will be very difficult for decisions about raising children (will they be baptized? what will you teach them about religion? etc). Having that in-depth discussion now related to marriage could be really helpful as you look forward to how you want to compromise with each other in other aspects of life.

My mother is not Catholic and my father is. She wanted compromises many times related to religion. For example, she got to pick a non-Catholic Church for us to attend every other Christmas, half of my siblings were baptized outside the Catholic Church, and I'm just learning that my first communion was not done through the correct channels either. I didn't like that she pulled us away from the Catholic Church, but at least they compromised and we got to go sometimes.

Also, here is a really awesome short video on the sacrament of marriage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPze90-oXa8

Good luck!

View Quoted Comment I know about the mass vs non-mass ceremony. We aren't having a mass ceremony - we couldn't even if FH wanted it because I can't take part in the communion.

We are not inviting people to the ceremony for either of us so there is no evening celebration to lead into. It is not a celebration for others but for us. I am not marring his god, I am marring him. There is no "god" in me.
I suppose based on the comments here, the best option is going to be elopement and then reaching out to the church to have the sacrament ceremony.

As for children, we aren't having any, so how we would raise them doesn't matter to our marriage.