Signing Marriage License DURING ceremony?

15 minutes, @Jenelle?!? If I'm going *really* slowly to try to write extra-nice, my signature takes *maybe* 30 seconds maximum, and my name is a 24 letter behemoth! I can't imagine how the signing could possibly take more than 4 minutes total.

Is this not normal? We did it, every other ceremony I've witnessed has done it.

I'm doing it during my ceremony.

We did not do it during the ceremony but we did it during the reception. It was a little more relaxed and actually very cool!!! My husband and I actually had already signed it at the courthouse. So we pretended to sign it. Then our witnesses and minister actually did. The dj told everyone what was going on. They really liked it!

I'm in NYC & the officiant mentioned having the witnesses sign it as part of the ceremony. I've seen it done. Never thought it was unusual.

Every ceremony I've attended to has had the signing of licence. But I live in Toronto Canada so who knows. We did it.

Our witnesses signed along with us too. It was nice IMO. We got to sneak in another lovely song in there and that was actually when I realized it was REAL REAL when I finally had a moment where I really noticed all of our guests watching me and me only sign this legal document.

I know it was less than 2 weeks ago but I recall it was after we kissed and before we were pronounced and recessional.

Cute idea!!

@StPaulGal, been to quite a lot of wedding and you are just sitting forever waiting. Everything in Barbados seem to take longer. Plus uour witnesses has to sign as well

I had never seen this at a wedding before until two weeks ago. A wedding I worked had it, and honestly it was kind of jarring... all their vow talk of love and family and looking forward to the future, when the officiant said, "can I get your signature here?" It was like something you hear at a bank, "Sign here, and initial there..."

I guess it can be romantic for some as it's the legal contract of your marriage, but to each their own...

My dad is marrying us and mentioned that he performed a wedding where they did the signing of the marriage license during the ceremony. I thought it was a good idea and will be having it in our wedding!

Wait...signing your license during the ceremony isnt the norm?? I learn new things every day here! Nowhere close to Canada, but it makes sense. Our wedding is in south Louisiana. We're definitely doing it during our wedding. It's a Catholic ceremony, so we're doing it right before the presentation to the blessed mother and our pianist will play Ava Maria during both.

No, but that would be cool. Unfortunately, that wouldn't work for me because we never had to sign the marriage certificate. Only the witnesses had to sign it.

I signed my license and did a unity candle in front of everyone as apart of my ceremony

Oh man I love this idea

FI and I are both lawyers so I can't think of anything more romantic. I mean, he wanted to invite everyone to our "contract signing" anyways ... talked him out of that one (we have normal invitations lol) but this is sooo cute :3

We signed before the ceremony.

This is standard in Canada. I've never been to a wedding where this didn't happen! My soon-to-be husband and I are getting married in the USA (he is American) and I was shocked to find out that people don't do that down here (and he was shocked to find out that they do in Canada!) Lol. We haven't decided if we will incorporate it in ours or not. All of our Canadian guests will think it's a sham marriage if we don't though! Haha

In CA on the wedding day only the witnesses sign the marriage license. We signed it when we bought it months before our wedding day. I've never seen it done during a ceremony.

In MN we take out the license up to six months before, both parties need to be present. We will sign it at the reception, we need two witnesses, both over 16. (Not sure I would want two 16 year old's signing it.....) Officiant has three days to mail it to the state, you get sealed copy back w/in two weeks, then the fun of name change (if you choose) begins!

Yea we didn’t do that in Delaware. That’s odd to me. We signed it before the ceremony

I don't think I've ever seen this, but I actually really like the idea! My FH and I aren't planning to do any type of "unity" ceremony, so this might be the added touch we have been looking for. I've enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on this!