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Marriage

The marriage license and the crowning: getting the paperwork right

What an Orthodox couple in the United States needs from the county as well as the parish: licenses, waiting periods, officiant rules, filing and the name change.

By Orthodate Editorial12 minute read

An Orthodox wedding in the United States requires two separate approvals that have nothing to do with each other. The state issues a marriage license through a county office, on its own timetable and with its own expiry date. The Church has its own requirements, its own documents and a calendar that closes certain weeks of the year entirely. Couples get into trouble when they assume one process knows about the other. It does not, and the civil deadlines are the ones that will not move.

At a glance

Key takeaways

  • The civil licence and the church blessing are independent processes with separate documents, and neither office will chase the other on your behalf.
  • Licences carry both a waiting period before they become usable and an expiry date after which they lapse, so the correct application window is narrower than couples expect.
  • After the ceremony the signed licence still has to be filed and the certified copy obtained, and nothing about a name changes automatically anywhere.

1. Two tracks, running at once

The civil track produces a marriage licence: a document issued by a state, almost always through a county clerk or a probate office, that authorises a ceremony to take place and is returned afterwards so the marriage can be recorded. Without it there is no legal marriage, whatever happened in church.

The church track produces permission to be married in the Orthodox Church: a priest who will perform the service, a date that the liturgical calendar permits, and whatever documentation your diocese requires. Without it there is no crowning, whatever the county has issued.

These two tracks intersect at exactly one point. The priest will not perform the service without a valid licence in hand, and in most places he signs and returns it afterwards. Everything else runs in parallel, which is why a couple can be four months into wedding planning with a booked hall and still be missing both.

2. Applying for the licence

You apply together, in person in most places, at the office designated by your state. In much of the country that is the county clerk; in some states it is a probate court or a registrar. Increasingly there is an online pre-application that shortens the visit but does not replace it.

What you will be asked for varies, but the following list covers the great majority of counties, and assembling it before you go saves a second trip.

  • Government photo identification for both of you, and in some places a certified birth certificate.
  • Social Security numbers, or a declaration if you do not have one.
  • The fee, which ranges widely and which a meaningful number of offices still want in cash or by money order rather than by card.
  • Details of any previous marriage, and in many states a certified divorce decree or a death certificate rather than your word for it.
  • Parents’ full names, including mothers’ names before marriage, which catches people out and is worth confirming in advance.
  • In some jurisdictions, proof of residence or a statement about where the ceremony will take place.

3. Waiting periods and expiry: the window is narrower than it looks

Two clocks apply, and couples usually only know about one of them. The first is a waiting period between issuance and the earliest date the licence may be used. Many states have none at all and the licence is effective the moment it is handed over; others impose a short wait of a few days. A handful allow a judge to waive it.

The second clock is expiry. A licence is not valid indefinitely; it lapses after a fixed period that in most states falls somewhere between one and three months. Apply too early and it expires before the wedding, which means paying again and, in some offices, waiting again.

The practical consequence is that there is a correct window rather than a correct date, and it is usually somewhere between two and six weeks before the ceremony. Ask your clerk for both numbers — the wait and the expiry — and put the resulting window in the calendar rather than relying on a vague intention to sort it out nearer the time.

Two further wrinkles. A licence issued by one state is generally only usable for a ceremony within that state, which matters when a couple lives in one place and is marrying at a parish in another; and in some states the licence must be obtained in the county where the ceremony will happen rather than where you live.

4. Who is allowed to perform the ceremony

Every state authorises ministers of religion to solemnise marriages, so an Orthodox priest is a valid officiant essentially everywhere. What differs is the paperwork behind that authority. Some states and counties require an officiant to register, to be listed, or to provide credentials before the licence can be returned, and a few have local requirements that surprise even experienced clergy.

In practice this is only ever a problem in one situation: a visiting priest. A couple who ask a priest from another state — a family friend, a former parish priest, a relative in orders — to perform the service should confirm early that he satisfies that state’s requirements. Almost always he does. Occasionally there is a registration step, and it is far easier to complete in March than in the week of the wedding.

There is also a permission question inside the Church that has nothing to do with the state. A priest marrying a couple outside his own parish normally needs the blessing of the local bishop or the parish’s rector, and where the two parties belong to different jurisdictions there may be a further step. Raise it early; it is routine, and it is only difficult when it is late.

5. What the parish will want from you

Requirements differ between jurisdictions and even between dioceses, so this is a list of what to ask about rather than a checklist to satisfy blindly. Ask the priest at your first meeting and ask for it in writing, because several of these items take weeks to obtain.

  • Proof of Orthodox baptism or chrismation for the Orthodox party or parties, often a certificate from the parish where it took place.
  • A letter of good standing from your home parish if you are marrying somewhere else.
  • Where one party is not Orthodox, confirmation of their baptism, since the conditions under which the Church blesses such a marriage turn on it. This is a conversation to have very early rather than an assumption to make.
  • For anyone previously married, the civil decree and whatever ecclesiastical step your diocese requires, which can be the longest item on the list.
  • Premarital preparation with the priest, which in many parishes is several sessions rather than one.
  • The name of the sponsor who will stand with you, and confirmation that they are an Orthodox Christian in good standing, since that is a canonical role rather than a decorative one.
  • The civil licence itself, produced before the service.

6. The calendar will close dates the venue will happily sell you

The Church does not perform marriages on certain days, and the list is longer than most couples expect. Great Lent and Holy Week are closed. So are the Nativity, Dormition and Apostles’ fasts in most practice, along with a number of individual feasts and their eves. In several traditions weddings are not held on the eve of a Sunday or a feast day either, which removes a large share of Saturday evenings.

Because Pascha moves, the closed weeks move with it, and they move differently for parishes on the old calendar. A date that is available in one year is not necessarily available in the next, and a date that works for a Greek parish may not work for a ROCOR one.

The order of operations that prevents heartbreak is simply to confirm the date with the priest before signing anything with a venue. Deposits are not refundable and the liturgical calendar is not negotiable, and of those two facts only one is widely known.

  • Marriage13 min

    When you can marry in the Orthodox Church

    Roughly half the year is closed to weddings, and the closures are not obvious from a civil calendar. This is the pattern, and the questions that settle your date.

7. On the day, and the week after

Bring the licence. It is astonishing how often this is the one thing nobody is carrying, and no priest in the United States will proceed without it. Give it to whoever is coordinating rather than leaving it in a jacket in a hotel room.

Most states require witnesses to sign, usually one or two, and in an Orthodox wedding the sponsor is the obvious candidate. Check the number your state requires rather than assuming, and make sure the people signing are the people whose names are written.

After the service the signed licence has to be returned to the issuing office, normally by the officiant and normally within a deadline measured in days. It is his responsibility in most states and it is your marriage, so confirm it was sent. Then order at least two certified copies of the marriage certificate once the record is filed: photocopies are not accepted by the agencies that will ask for it, and you will need it more often in the next year than you expect.

8. Nothing about your name changes by itself

A marriage certificate does not change anyone’s name. If one of you is taking the other’s surname, that is a separate sequence of applications, and doing them out of order causes most of the friction people complain about.

The order that works is: certified marriage certificate first, then the Social Security Administration, then the driver’s licence or state identification, then the passport, then banks, employer, insurance, voter registration and everything else. Several of those offices check against Social Security records, so updating them before the Social Security record has caught up produces a mismatch and a second visit.

Two practical notes. Book travel in the name on the identification you will actually be carrying, which for a honeymoon shortly after the wedding is usually the old one. And whether either of you changes a name at all is a decision the state leaves entirely to you; there is no Orthodox requirement either way, whatever a relative tells you.

9. Situations worth flagging early

Most couples need nothing from this section. The ones who do usually need it months before they realise, which is the only reason it is here.

  • One party is not a US citizen. Immigration status and the marriage are separate legal questions, but they interact, and the sequencing of a wedding can matter a great deal. Speak to a licensed immigration attorney before fixing a date.
  • A civil ceremony has already taken place. The Church treats the crowning as the sacrament, and a couple already married civilly can normally be married in church afterwards, but the pastoral conversation is a little different and should happen early.
  • You are marrying abroad, or one family is overseas. Documents issued in another country frequently need authentication, and consular requirements take longer than anyone plans for.
  • Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona offer a distinct covenant marriage option with different requirements and a different dissolution standard. It is voluntary, and it is worth understanding rather than selecting at a counter.
  • A small number of states still recognise common-law marriage, and several more recognise one formed elsewhere. If you believe this may apply to a previous relationship, raise it with an attorney before applying for a licence.
  • Either of you has a previous marriage that has not been formally ended. Nothing else on this page matters until that is resolved, in both the civil and the ecclesiastical sense.

Build the paperwork timeline backwards from the date

Start from the ceremony date and work backwards, because every item below has a lead time and two of them have hard windows. Do this once, in one sitting, as soon as the date is confirmed with the priest.

  1. Step 1

    Confirm the date with the priest before the venue

    Take a candidate date to the priest first and have him confirm the liturgical calendar allows it in that year and in your parish’s tradition. Only then put down a deposit anywhere. Ask at the same meeting for the parish’s full documentation list in writing, and note which items must come from another parish or diocese.

  2. Step 2

    Call the county office and write down two numbers

    Ask the office that will issue your licence for the waiting period and the expiry period, plus the fee, the accepted payment methods, whether both parties must attend, what identification and prior-marriage documents are required, and how many witnesses must sign. Those first two numbers define the only window in which you may apply.

  3. Step 3

    Start the slow items now

    Order certified copies of birth certificates, divorce decrees or death certificates immediately, since these come from other jurisdictions and can take weeks. Request baptismal certificates and any letter of good standing at the same time, and begin any diocesan step for a previous marriage before anything else on the list.

  4. Step 4

    Plan the week after the wedding

    Agree who confirms that the signed licence was returned and by when. Order at least two certified copies of the marriage certificate once it is filed. If either of you is changing a name, schedule the sequence in order: certificate, Social Security, state identification, passport, then everything else.

Common questions

Do we need a marriage license for an Orthodox wedding in the United States?

Yes. The church service and the civil licence are separate, and no priest will perform the crowning without a valid licence in hand. The licence comes from a county clerk or equivalent office under your state’s law and is returned after the ceremony so the marriage can be recorded.

How far in advance should we get the marriage license?

There is a window rather than a date, usually two to six weeks before the ceremony. Ask your county for two numbers: any waiting period between issuance and the earliest usable date, and the expiry period after which the licence lapses. Applying too early is as much of a problem as applying too late.

Can a priest from another state marry us?

Usually yes, since every state authorises ministers of religion to solemnise marriages, but some states and counties require an officiant to register or provide credentials first. He will also normally need the blessing of the local rector or bishop. Both steps are routine in March and difficult in the week of the wedding.

Which dates can we not be married on?

Great Lent and Holy Week are closed, as are the Nativity, Dormition and Apostles’ fasts in most practice, along with certain feasts and their eves, and in several traditions the eve of any Sunday. Because Pascha moves, the closed weeks move each year and differ between old-calendar and new-calendar parishes. Confirm with the priest before paying a venue deposit.

Does the marriage certificate change my name automatically?

No. A name change is a separate sequence: certified marriage certificate, then Social Security, then your state identification, then your passport, then banks and everyone else. Several agencies check against Social Security records, so going out of order produces a mismatch and a second visit.

We were already married at the courthouse. Can we still have an Orthodox wedding?

Normally yes. The Church treats the crowning as the sacrament, and a couple already married civilly can usually be crowned afterwards. The pastoral conversation is slightly different, so raise it with the priest at the first meeting rather than presenting it as a formality.

Do we still need a blood test?

Blood tests were once required in many states and have been eliminated almost everywhere. Because marriage law is set state by state, confirm with the office issuing your licence rather than assuming, along with the identification, fee and prior-marriage documents that office requires.

Sources and further reading

Pastoral practice can vary by diocese and jurisdiction. For questions about your circumstances, speak with the priest responsible for your pastoral care.