pa State Marriage Law

Your best bet in Pennsylvania is a self-uniting marriage. Originally developed for Quakers, who don't have ministers, this allows you to get married by just getting the self-uniting license, then signing a paper saying you agree to be married. At that point, you can have anyone you like conduct a ceremony, because the ceremony isn't necessary for you to be legally married.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for responding. We'll look into going that route.

Hey Angela! Congratulations on your engagement!

When it comes to legal matters such as this, I would definitely recommend contacting your county clerk and talking to someone there. By speaking to someone, you can ask all of your specific questions about the legality of your marriage and know that you are getting the correct information.

An option may be to have a courthouse ceremony to legally wed and then ask your close friend to conduct a symbolic ceremony that would be attended by friends and family.

View Quoted Comment Thank you Sinead! I am going to call the county clerk's office now and see what they say.

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I stumbled across your discussion! My fiance and I live in NJ, but we're getting married in Bucks County. We just started talking about possibly having a friend marry us, but I didn't realize there was a history of issues with things like that. Will definitely have to look into it!

Hey Megan! So quick update, I called the county clerk's office in the county we're getting married in and I asked if the legality of our marriage would be questionned if we're married by our family friend. They actually said they are fine with "online" ordained ministers and will not really look into this as deeply as other counties sometimes will. It definitely depends on the county you're in so I would call them and see how they view this and what your options are. Good luck!

See I don’t understand why they say it matters what county. I called the county I’m getting married in and was told my marriage license doesn’t even have to be from the county. I can get it by my house (I live near Philly and getting married outside of Pittsburg) as long as it’s PA. My brother is marrying us and was ordained online

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Hi Angela! Can I ask what county you're in? My FH and I are being married by a friend of ours also, but haven't looked too much into the legality portion of it.

We are being married by my childhood friend. She lives in NY and we are getting married in Montgomery County. She called the county office to determine how she could transfer her online officiant status to marry us here. She said Bucks county was the easiest, but Montgomery County is possible too (in the beginning we were unsure which county we would marry in.) Good luck--but I totally think you can do it!

My sister had a friend "marry" her and her wife. When they we applying for the marriage license the clerk brought that up to them and suggested that they get married at the court house. They got married at the court house the day before the actual wedding and still had their friend "marry" them for the ceremony. Since it was a gay marriage they wanted to make sure nothing came up later that would call the union into question. You can always go that route if you're worried about it.

View Quoted Comment Hey! We're in Lancaster County. I would definitely call the clerk's office ahead of time in whatever county you two apply for your marriage license in. Good luck with everything!

View Quoted Comment Hi Rose, thank you so much for the response. We called and talked to the office and they seemed very lax about the whole thing so I think we're going to be good to go.

View Quoted Comment Hi Tina, thank you! I'm feeling so much better about it now that I called and spoke to them about the situation. Good luck to you both as well.