Marriage license

This is HALARIOUS that you posted this just now as I just got off the phone with the Clerks office in the town were getting married in and they were like "you have time don't worry about this" but I'm worrying about cause you need to make an appointment to get it the license and of course their appointments are during the working day so FH and I need to know a time so we can work it out with work.

I would check with your town clerk on how the handle it. I had to fill out a worksheet to send to the clerks office so they could draft up the license, we both have to be present to pick it up, but it is not signed until the day of the wedding and our officiant will handle it from there.

Also check with your officiant, we just had a meeting with ours and she let us know legally she needed the license prior to the day of the wedding so we have to meet up with her to drop it off.

This really depends on where you are getting married and what's required to be filled in. I live in MA and we had to go in together to apply for the license, wait 3 days to pick it up and then it was good for 30 days. The only thing that needed to happen on our wedding day was our officiant signing it and mailing it in to our city. No witnesses and no extra info filled out on our end.

This is a great question that I didn’t really think of! It would probably depend on the officiant and the state’s requirements. I think I’ll fill everything out on the day of the ceremony.

We had to go in, fill in forms, they had us double check after they typed and printer the license, then we got to take it home with us (I think it was good for 30 days, but we got it the week before the wedding). We took it to the rehearsal and gave it to the officiant and the only thing that had to happen on the wedding day was that the officiant had to sign it. (Alabama)

It definitely depends on where you're getting married, though, so you should definitely check what the procedure is local to your wedding.

A family member was our officiant. The day after our wedding, two witnesses, my fiancé and I and the officiant signed 2(or 3 copies). Then our officiant took the papers and mailed them in to the town we got married in.


A month prior we got our license from the town we live in (different than the town we got married in)

Then we were told about 2 weeks after it is mailed in to call and ask for official copies of the certificate.
This was in NJ

But to answer your question, yes there was a lot to fill out like addresses of the two witnesses and addresses of the officiant and addresses of the bride and groom. I don’t see why you couldn’t pre fill that out and then just simply sign the day of the wedding

Definitely depends on your county/state. We are in Kansas. We had to fill out our information and submit it online, as our office (in January 2022) wasn’t accepting in-person appointments. The license was then emailed to us with 1-2 weeks, and we printed a few copies (and saved the email). It was good for 6 months. As everything was pre-filled out, we only needed our officiant and witnesses to sign it after our wedding. The officiant could then mail it, or we could scan it and email it back to our office. We chose the email option, and our office forward it on. We then were able to get the certified copies via mail about a month after our wedding.

We're going the morning of, but might fill out papers ahead of time.

My best advice would be to call your local court clerk to see what needs to happen.

In GA we have to fill out an online application then go to the clerk's office with a government ID to get our marriage license. The license doesn't have an expiration date in GA, but a lot of other states' marriage licenses do, so make sure to take that into account. I believe the license has all the info pre-printed so we just have to sign it, our church will have it sent to the court, and then we'll get however many certified copies back.

Oh we are pre-filling everything out that we can and just signing it before we walk down the aisle in all honesty. That or we will incorporate it into our actual ceremony so that way we can just peace out and go do photos while golden hour is golden hour.