Pennsylvania Marriage Liscense & The Internet Ordained Clarification

This is great info. I would not, not let your uncle know, I would be honest and up front with him. I think I would be more hurt if someone tried to hide this on me. Just my personal opinion.

So wait you want to do what? Secretly do a self uniting ceremony in private and then do a "pretend" ceremony where you lie to your uncle and guests about what's happening?

I'm sorry but I would not recommend this. Should your uncle find out that you lied to him, and were married before your actual wedding in a secret ceremony, he is bound to be extremely hurt and let down. Being honest, and upfront is always the best policy.

I think it may be possible to still work him into the ceremony, either as an informal MC or by allowing him to take part in a reading or a prayer or something along those lines. If the three of you sit down together to look at some self uniting ceremonies you may be able to figure out a better course of action that does not include lying

Clark County in Vegas is like that, too! I was going to have a friend do it for us (he offered) but then when I looked into it, I found out it wouldn't count

Your self-uniting or “Quaker “ license is good for 60 days and only requires to witnesses to sign it. You don’t have to have separate ceremonies in order to use this.

If I were you I would try to do the uniting ceremony after the wedding celebration... I feel like it would detract from the specialness of your wedding if you were already secretly legally married. Just get it legally done a day or two later! It’ll be the equivalent of just signing your papers a day or two late.

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Or she could just do it on her wedding day and not have everyone come out to see a fake ceremony? I really don't see a reason to lie to everyone

If she doesn’t tell your uncle that his license isn’t valid he could try to possibly marry other couples, thinking it’s legal. If you got ordained online and the state of Pennsylvania does not allow that, he needs to know that he is not legally allowed to marry anyone.

Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be. Tell your uncle. Have the same ceremony with slightly different wording at parts since technically he isn’t marrying you, you’re marrying yourselves. He can sign as a witness but you can’t get another marriage license.

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I am going to call my uncle today and explain everything to him.

View Quoted Comment He can still be a part of your wedding just in a different way.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with separating the legal aspect from the spiritual aspect. You can sign off on a self uniting without actually exchanging vows. To me, that’s just not the same.

*This* is why my FH talked me down off the ledge from eloping at Nemacolin.

View Quoted Comment Technically you’re not married until you sign the papers so is it “fake” to have people watch the ceremony if you sign the papers before or after the ceremony? Most people don’t deal with the legal aspect of their marriage at their actual ceremony. In most people’s cases it’s just signing papers... in hers, it’s also a “legal pronouncement.”

The ceremony is the symbolic start of their marriage, and THAT is the part that is truly meaningful. It’s no one’s business (nor would most people care...) when or how they approach the legal aspect of it.

But that’s why I said that I advise she do the legal stuff after the symbolic ceremony, not before. So they won’t “already be married” going into the wedding. THAT will feel like more of a secret from everyone. Choosing to deal with the legal aspect the day after the symbolic and meaningful aspect does not make her wedding fake.

To add, I would definitely tell your uncle the situation and I wouldn’t *lie* about it if people happen to ask (but why would they?) but I don’t think it’s necessary to declare it to everyone.

Like I said if you get “legally married” BEFORE your wedding, the wedding may feel less special to you because you’ll know that you’re already married. But doing it after will make it so your wedding day is still special... where you exchange vows, celebrate with friends and family, etc. Then the next day you’ll take care of the legal formality. Not a “lie” to anyone, it’s just not a big deal!

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If you have an actual officiant and not a friendor they will require you to sign your marriage certificate at your ceremony. Not before. Or After. The exchanging of vows and Saying I do is something that is required for the officiant to do and witness for it to be legal. The legal thing is signing the certificate. Filing it is a formality. Nothing about what you are saying is correct from a legal standpoint. Yes there is a difference between a "legal" and "spiritual" standpoint. But the day you sign that certificate is the day you are legally married, and your legal anniversary.

View Quoted Comment If I were a guest to someone’s wedding and found out a legality issue came up last minute with their officiant and they decided to go through with the wedding they planned but make their marriage officially legal the day after, I could not imagine being upset, angry, or feeling lied to at all. I would actually feel more sorry for the couple than anything, because they had to deal with the added hassle.

If you get upset and call it “lying” if your friends and family don’t share every detail of their lives with you, I can’t imagine you would be able to maintain great relationships. It’s not lying, it’s just no ones business. So what if their “legal anniversary” is a different day? Why the heck would a guest care about their legal anniversary? Why would the couple care? They can celebrate their anniversary whenever they want to. Most people don't celebrate anniversaries on the actual day anyway.

If this situation happened to me and a friend or family member actually got mad at me and felt “lied to” because a stressful legal issue with my wedding came up and I had to come up with a last minute way to resolve it, that is not someone I’d want in my life.

I was so frustrated by this because I have a friend who was already ordained online and we had to change course because of this. Luckily we have a judge in the family.

Anyway, my dad's actually a Lutheran minister (whole bunch of reasons he's not marrying us), but he gave us an idea to get around it:

According to him (and I'd recommend double checking into this), anyone can perform 98% of the ceremony, but it has to be a religious person or judge etc. who does the actual pronouncing. He'd even suggested having our friend do the thing if we really wanted and then he'd hop up and pronounce us, but in the end, we just asked his cousin to do the whole thing because...well, see above. Have a judge, might as well ask him.

Pennsylvania is weird, my friends.

(Side note, we're Westmoreland County, too! How was the office to work with otherwise??)

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I know plenty of people who technically married in the courthouse or magistrate, for one reason or another, and had a wedding later on. Just because they did, didn't make their wedding day and less special or fake.

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Yes, very true. My aunt said that my uncle's best friend did the same thing and has married several people, so now she's wondering if their marriages were even legal.

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Thank you.

I completely agree.

I only mentioned doing this before our actual wedding because we might not have any other options due to the 60-day time limit. When I talk to the Register of Wills office, I will gt more clarification. If the marriage liscense time limit started when I first applied online, then we would be forced to "marry" before our actual wedding. If it started yesterday, then we have just enough time to do it the week after the wedding.

I was just at a friend's wedding in Philadelphia and they did this! I thought it was so cool that they just married themselves. And they let anyone who wanted to speak after say a few words. It was really sweet and very unique. Those commonwealth states are tricky. I live in VA and am having the same issues with a friend marrying us.