How to have a friend officiate your California wedding (…legally!)

Comments on How to have a friend officiate your California wedding (…legally!)

1. I officiated my cousin Lacey’s wedding in October. I got my ordination through ULC. The only real problem we ran into is we never rehearsed because her dad kept running off and doing other things. It was pitch black outside when we finally tried to sort of rehearse.

2. I can’t verify the current-ness of their information, but the ULC has a handy guide to wedding laws by state, as well as a few countries outside the US.
   Interactive map ahoy!

3. I’m so jealous! North Carolina marriage laws are so picky…they specifically don’t allow marriages by ULC ordained ministers and require a church minister to be able to prove association with a church by their taxes. Court magistrates are the only government officials who can perform marriages, and you can’t get them to come outside a courthouse unless you personally know one. Finding someone to marry us was a nightmare…word of advice: go to Florida to get married! Any notary republic can marry you there.

4. We were married by a friend, Adam, who is an ordained Moravian minister in South Carolina. But, he’s the go-to guy to perform weddings for just about everyone we hung out with in college, so he’s married folks in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts as well. Apparently it’s very easy to “transfer” your ordination to other states if you’re ordained in one state. According to Adam, he filled out and mailed in a one-page form with a copy of the paper saying he’s a minister, and bam! he had access to the line “By the power vested in me by the State of New Jersey….”

5. Also! Note that California laws for marriage solemnization do change by county – they’re not the same statewide! As noted, the costs for deputization and court ceremonies do vary (cheaper in Alameda County across the bay, for example). The county clerks who prepare marriage licenses are well equipped to help you navigate exactly what you need to meet that county’s requirements. Some require the ordained minister to register in advance, others ask that they bring the signed marriage license in with their ordination certificate, some require it done by mail. Most licenses in CA can be obtained at least 30 days in advance of the ceremony, which is time enough for online ordination if needed.

   • I was ordained through ULC and American Marriage Miniseries… I just want to make sure they I am legal to marry my friends… They got they marriage license in Sutter County and want to be married at Crissy Field in San Francisco… Is there anything I need to do in San Francisco to make sure this all goes smoothly? Thank you so much for all of your help…

     • Hi Jodi, and congrats on your ordination. There are only a few states who disregard this particular ordination, but this is California, and we have one of the most lax governments when it comes to marriage licensing. As long as it is a marriage of public record, you may acquire the license in any county in the state. I actually have a wedding coming up at Crissy Field myself in less than a month. 🙂 As far as you are concerned, you don’t need to do anything special to perform a ceremony in SF. Depending on the size of wedding, the couple may want to get a permit to use the space for a wedding. The counties are sticklers for how the forms are filled out. EMPHATICALLY STRESS to the witness(es) – 2 allowed, only one required – they remain in the lines and fill out their info completely and as legibly as possible. Test your pen in advance to ensure it is good to go. If any of you fail to do this properly, you’ll have to go into the Sutter County Clerk’s office and pay for a duplicate. A pain in the arse, to be sure. When you fill out your section, just sign your name, print and put your address. When it asks title and denomination you will enter “minister” and “non denomination”. Then you return it quickly (expected within 10 days, but the sooner you do, the sooner they can record and have it made official retroactively) so they can order their copy. It is easier than it feels. I remember my first wedding several years ago. I was so stressed about what I was doing. It’s actually quite simple.

       If you have questions and would like to speak to me, feel free to search for my website and give a call. I wouldn’t mind. (My business is self branded. It may be posted attached to this but I’m not sure and am not super aware of the rules here and want to respect them.)

       PS: As an officiant and event planner, I have my entire staff ordained through the same ministry you are. This covers our clients should they have hired someone besides me to officiate and that person doesn’t show up, or is delayed too much. The ‘show’ must go on!

       My best, Jen Antoniou

       • My question is: if a couple was married in San Diego County by a ULC minister but the couple never recorded the marriage license in the city clerk office. Are they legally married under California law? They believe they are not.

6. I had a friend officiate my wedding. I was her third wedding and she surprised me by how knowledgeable she was about the process. She made it easy for us.

   PS – LOVE the Pulgas Water Temple (pictured in the post.) It’s one of the most beautiful and fairly inexpensive places to get married in N. Cal.

7. This is brilliant!! I was just thinking about writing to our Tribe here on this very topic! I love that you found the wording required. Because we are two women, we truly can say whatever we want but *just in case* Prop 8 is finally over before our wedding next June, we’d like to have the legal words in there. Wouldn’t it suck if our marriage could be legal but we didn’t have everything needed to make it legal during the ceremony?? Yes! A good friend has already gotten herself ordained for us. We’re pretty stoked!

   PS: I found this website with loads of information on California. A lot of reading but it might help with the legality of it all.
   http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=civ&codesection=ccp&codesection=fam&codesection=gov&codebody=civil+marriage&hits=20

8. thank you so much for this post! we just asked a good friend to officiate our wedding so i was just beginning researching this process. much obliged!

9. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We’ve asked my brother to officiate our CA wedding and before today I had made one unorganized and skittish attempt to find out just *how* to accomplish that. This is perfect!

10. It is SUPER SUPER SUPER easy to officiate a wedding in California! I just performed my friend’s wedding last month. All I did was register at the Universal Life Church-for free. That’s it. My friend took care of getting a wedding license and all I had to do was fill it out. In CA it is uniquely easy to perform a wedding there is no central office to register with. You just register with Universal Life Church, fill out the license, and mail it in. Period.

    (I work independently and was in no way PAID or asked to post anything on behalf of ULC)

    • Thanks so much! I just got asked a few days ago to officiate my best friend and her future wife’s wedding in CA so of course I want to make sure all my ducks are in a row. This has been such an enlightening post!

    • Hi Miriam , I just did the online ordination request form. I’m a bit confused on what steps to take next?

11. Alaska does the same thing – anyone can be “deputized” in essence to perform a ceremony. Hence I don’t think very many people do the courthouse thing. At any rate I can’t find any info on how to do that up here. 🙂 Guess they figure everyone’s got a friend!

12. I wonder if Dudeism and/or Pastafarianism count as religious groups in Washington! I have been an ordained ULC minister for many years, but don’t know if my atheism disqualifies me. 🙂 Anyway, I want to have my brother officiate the wedding between me and my partner, and maybe he’d like the Dudeism thing better too.

    • Even though I’m in Australia, I got ordained in the Church of the Latter-Day Dude a couple of years ago. You know, just in case I’m ever asked to officiate a wedding in the states… I was thinking a unity White Russian cocktail would be suitable 🙂

      http://dudeism.com/ordination/

13. Our friend Lauren, who is not an ordained minister, but serves as a lay leader of her UU church, filled out a form and paid $25 a month in advance of our wedding in MA to become a ‘justice of the peace for a day’ in order to officiate our wedding. http://www.mass.gov/governor/administration/legal/marriage/ has the details on the process.

14. We had my husband’s uncle officiate our wedding- in Sacramento. Rather than get ordained, he went through the county/state for a license to perform a single ceremony. My cousin, however, did get ordained online prior to officiating another cousin’s wedding.

15. I’m so jealous of your wedding laws. In the UK you can either have a religious service in a church, or a non-religious civil ceremony by a registrar. Makes it trickier than I think it needs to be (I’d love an outdoors, religious, legal wedding but that’s not possible in the UK).

16. We had my sister and hubby’s brother (who were also the MOH and BM!) ordained with ULC for our Sonoma County, California wedding; my sister is Agnostic, and Hubby’s brother is Christian.

    You don’t have to purchase any of the certificates, etc. at ULC. It’s all optional. We even went down to the County to see what they needed, and all they wanted was for the minister(s) to fill out the marriage certificate.

    It did get a little tricky because there were two of them. They both performed the Ceremony, and when it came to signing the marriage certificate, they played rock-paper-scissors for the spot, and the “loser” signed as the witness. 🙂

17. Thank you for the in depth info! My friend (also an attorney) got ordained through AMM to marry my husband and I. I am getting ordained through AMM as well to marry my cousin and her fiancé.

18. The requirements allow an “authorized person of any religious denomination” to perform the “ceremony.” It doesn’t say who must authorize, if anybody, or what authorization means. If, in your religious tradition, marriage ceremonies are performed by family elders, the state would be hard pressed to say that they are not “authorized…[within the]…religious denomination.” As for the ceremony, none is truly required. “Declare” doesn’t necessarily mean in spoken words, and signing the certificate could be considered the necessary declaration. Or taking part in the ceremony and circling the bride three times could be considered a declaration. Indeed in many customs, the bride and groom have no speaking role in the ceremony. That includes orthodox Jews for example.

    So it boils down to a bride and groom signing a certificate in front of an officiator and witnesses, where the officiator is a person who believes that he is authorized according to his belief system. Thus it’s up to an individual to authorize himself. There’s no other way it could be done. Otherwise, it would work with religions that have a specific hierarchy, such as Catholicism where positions are dictated from the Pope on down. But it wouldn’t work with religions whose families have been members for thousands of years before there were any certifying bodies. Even among religions, who gets to certify comes down to who people are willing to accept. A person certified as a rabbi by a union or reform rabbis might not have his authority recognized by an orthodox rabbi. So even within mainstream religions, it comes down to some members of a religion appointing themselves to determine whether somebody else of the religion meets the criteria. So if you declare yourself a Deist, you’d be qualified by definition.

    On line ordinations are rip offs, since the people who do them are self appointed. Anybody has the right to establish a Church, and then ordain people. So I hereby ordain anybody reading this post who says “I agree to uphold the terms outlined in this post.” There you go, it’s legal. You can now perform weddings.

19. Thank you so much for this article! I got ordained by ULC for another friend’s wedding next year, but I’ve been roped into officiating a CA wedding in two weeks. The Family Code’s been doing my head in trying to parse what it says lest I screw up legal paperwork.

    • The certificate itself merely has a place for the bride, groom, two witnesses and the officiator to sign. (I think it might also ask for a title). There’s not much to screw up. It just needs to be signed and filed. And there’s no requirement that the officiator show any documents attesting to qualifications. So there’s not much paperwork to screw up.

      A lot of the paperwork is done up front. Aside from what I mentioned, the rest gets filled in ahead of time at the County Clerk’s office. The couple must apply in person, present ID, give appropriate information, and be prepared to give the names they wish to be known by after the wedding. Then they have 90 days to get married.

      The officiator has 10 days to file (i.e. register) the marriage certificate with the county recorder, which is often the same as the county clerk’s office. The certificate must be legible and unambiguous. It must be reproducible, and can’t have “white out” or erasure marks or anything crossed out.

      Essentially it means that the Clerk’s office knew from the beginning that the couple wanted to get married, and returning it is just executing a contract already on file.

20. I am getting married in Monterey County and this helped me so much! I also did some sources cross-referencing and everything seems to match what everyone else says. I really wanted our family friend, who has a great sense of humor and public personality, to marry us and California makes it super easy.

21. My brother changed his life plans and decided he wanted to be a Pastor, he’s my best friend in the whole world so i was thrilled when we had the idea for him to marry us, we are getting married at a destination (2 hours away) on a saturday evening and leaving for our honeymoon that night, and my brother lives in Nevada and has to get on a plane to make it back to school that monday so i don’t know how he would get the license to the court house and I’m sure its closed on sunday so how would we go about that??

    • I am certain this has been handled already, as it was written about 6 weeks ago, but in the interest of future readers who have the same question, here is the answer. You have 10 days, in the state of California, to return the completed marriage license to where it was issued and can do so by mail. I remember clearly the first wedding I ever did… I went immediately to a mail box and sent it off. I have never had an issue, so that is a relief! 🙂 Also, I was ordained by another ministry, and I am sure they do not sanction same-sex marriage… so in the interest of making sure it is all legit for me to perform any marriage ceremony I may choose to, I have been ordained by ULC, for free. I did not purchase the additional materials available.

      PS… refreshing to see a no-drama policy. Wish everyone had one. 🙂

      • This information was very helpful!
        I don’t subscribe to any religions, and am trying to get one of my best friends to do my wedding.
        I just have one question, what to write for “the official position of the person solemnizing the marriage.”
        It may be a dumb question, but I don’t want to screw anything up!
        Would we just write “ordained citizen”…?

        • You could just put down “reverend.” That would apply to any revered person of any religion.

        • You can just write minister. Under denomination, put non-denomination. It is rather easy. 🙂

      • Update: apparently the 10 days is a guideline for officiants to be on the ball for couples. I had a groom insist on turning it in himself (was not a public license) and he waited over a month. Didn’t phase the clerk’s office, and SF has the strictest and most annoying and unyielding people ever. So if more than 10 days have passed you by, just either send it in, or drop it off. I’d wager the odds are in your favor.

22. Thanks for all this information! A friend asked me to officiate their wedding on the beach in California. I am a strong supporter of marriage but I think the state has their hand way to much into it. Anyway I hope this works! They are getting married in 2 weeks, (2 week engagement yay). Speaking of all this, how am I still single?

    • Here is an update by the way for those interested… I figured out everything required for officiating, and this was in San Diego county. The new issue that came up (its a wedding it can’t happen without some type of hitch ‘budum chh’ I crack myself up… anyway they of course wanted a beach wedding. She is Hawaiian so of course we had to have a barefoot beach wedding with everyone decorated with leis. Now San Diego has some interesting beach laws and this was labor day weekend which made it even more interesting of a story. In the end I figured out some secret loopholes to a beach wedding because technically you need a permit, permission and only are allowed certain days (not holidays). This was a fun adventurous story and not sure this is the thread for it here. If anyone is curious though let me know and I will tell you the beach secret… if you promise to keep the sanctity of the secret in sickness or in health till death or unless someone else comes along that needs help and is worthy.

      • Hello Everyone,

        This is a very interesting thread. I am a wedding officiant down in San Diego County, and I can vouch for the article. My background is in training and facilitation, and I was looking for another use for those skills. I was surprised to find that I could get ordained and start a business as a wedding officiant. Now, I do it in addition to my day job.

        I have also navigated the San Diego beach use waters and I recommend that my couples from out of town go to Coronado. No permit is required as long as you don’t have chairs, arches or sound systems as part of the set up. You also have to have fewer than 25 people in attendance. I have performed many weddings along that stretch of beach, and it is beautiful.

        Oceanside is another city in the San Diego area that does not charge a fee. The same rules apply as with Coronado.

        For San Diego City Beaches, they want you to have a permit for any use of their outdoor facilities – beaches, parks, etc. I talked to the city to find out what could happen if a ceremony were held, and they said that a police officer could issue a citation to the couple. If a couple still wants to use a city beach, I ask that they leave me out of the permit discussion.

        I think it is great for friends and family members to perform the ceremony, and I am the only officiant (that I am aware of) who has put together a service to help them get ready for this responsibility.

        Take care,
        Reverend Rob

23. Thanks a lot for this super informative post! We are planning to have a friend officiate our wedding, and this is so helpful. So just a quick question, does the officiate have to return the form on himself? Or is that okay for us to return it for him? Because he will only be here for one day.

    Thanks for any comment!

    • Technically, in the state of CA, the officiant is supposed to return the paperwork. I often mail it same day. However, how would they know? 🙂 Once in a while I have a couple that insists on returning it themselves. Best wishes to you both!

      • Today I called the Sonoma County recorder’s office where they do marriage licenses here and they confirmed for me that the officiant does NOT have to be the one who returns the license. We can return the license ourselves. I was concerned because we’re getting married in San Diego and our officiant lives there, not here. How/why would she travel up here within 10 days of the wedding just to drop off the license? Silly.

24. This is great info. Thanks for all the research and effort you put into this.
    My only question is the Marriage License that the couple, you & witnesses have to sign. Where is the source ? Is it online to print out ? Is it obtained from a literary or county or city clerk ? Do the couple have to go pay for it from somewhere and bring it to the officiant ?
    What’s involved to get this Form ?

25. If you are married already, does your friend who is officiating your ceremony have to be ordained? Can it just be a ceremony without the ordination? I am just wondering how it works in California.

26. We wanted our sons…hers and mine, to preform the ceremony. Her son 30 and my son 19. They are now both ordained and will preform the ceremony in October 2015. This is the way we wanted it as we are a blended family. All of us worked hard in this family to get to where we are today. It should be a beautiful ceremony!

27. Thank you very much , very helpful

28. My husband is going to get ordained and perform a ceremony in CA. We live in Florida so time is limited. Does it have to be the officiant themselves that have to return the marriage certificate, or can the bride and groom do it? Thanks so much, this is a great post!

29. can a preacher perform his or her on wedding

30. can a preacher perform his or her own wedding

31. Question – So when the officiant (ordained online) fills out the marriage license, what do they put down for position and denomination?

32. Here’s my take on this. Would you want somebody to do your hair and make up is never done hair and make up before on your wedding day? The answer is no would you want somebody to be your DJ who is only use an iPod in here’s my take on this. Would you want somebody to do your hair and make up is never done hair and make up before on your wedding day? The answer is no would you want somebody to be your DJ who is only use an iPod? The answer is no Would you want to go to a venue that’s never hosted a wedding before? The answer is no. Do you want your flowers to be done by somebody is never done flowers before? The answer is no. And why would you risk the most important part of your day to somebody Wh has never done it before? You shouldn’t! Well let me sound good to have a friend or family member do it in most cases it turns out to be terrible. I could list reason after reason after reason why it will not work.

    • Does that mean you only want to marry someone who has done it before? I guess thats why black dresses are getting popular. Maybe if there was more focus on the marriage instead of the wedding but we can’t all get married unless we find someone thats done it before.

    • I have to say that I agree with a lot of what Alan has stated. While I am certain everyone needs a gig to start doing what they are doing, which means someone has used a person who has never done it before – even officiants had their first wedding they performed, there is something to be said for having been in the rodeo before.

      I have been performing weddings for ten years, and have found what works and doesn’t work in performing a ceremony. Don’t forget that a major portion of the officiant’s role is to properly fill out, and help the witness(es) fill out, the marriage license.

      Having a friend or family member provides a wonderful personal touch to your ceremony, but I would recommend that you find an officiant who offers a consultation service for friends and family members so they can perform your ceremony.

33. My sister got engaged a few months ago, and she asked me if I would like to perform the wedding ceremony. Of course, I was honored. She sent me a link to this column to learn more about getting ordained online, and I took the writer’s advice to get ordained through American Marriage Ministries. What a terrible idea! Only when I went to the county clerk in CA did I learn that AMM ordinations are a sham – they’re totally illegal! I didn’t get a clear explanation, something to do with certification status or whatnot. Anyway, I ended up going back and getting ordained with the other guys to ensure my sister’s ceremony will be legal. Disappointed with the advice from this column!

34. I’d love to write an article about this very topic for Pennsylvanians. We have some unique rules and it’s not easy to find the info!

    • Please please do! We’d love to read it! http://offbeatwed.com/submissions/guestpost

35. Thank you for sharing this great information. It saved me $120, after having spent it for “one day” to officiate for my nephew. Now all my friends are asking me! I have a question that I’m unable to answer so far: Now that I’m ordained (online, using your link, thanks!) what is it that I put in the officiant “title” box of the Marriage License? Minister, perhaps? I have no idea.

    Also, does each county in California have their own Marriage License? In other words, there isn’t one standard document for California? I’d like to have a look at it, before I’m asked to fill it in!

36. Does your affiliation need to be in the state of California? Meaning, I’m marrying my wife’s Cousin in California…but I live in Virginia and my ordination/affiliation is with a Virginia church. As that good enough? Or do I need to go through one of these online websites?

37. Hi Darrell,

    Minister is the best term to use, unless you have a title from a specific denomination.

    For CA, the forms are the same. I have filled out forms from Orange County, San Diego County, Riverside County and Santa Barbara County and they all follow the same format.

38. Hi, I am an Officiant in California. Am I allowed to sign as witness on the marriage license?

    • Hi Shanna,

      I am also an officiant in California. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to. The witness section does not ask for the same information as the officiant section. It would just be your printed name, signature and address.

39. Thanks for creating this. But you really need to update the section that refers to “husband and wife”. You’re linking to a copy of the California Family Law code from 2009 that’s not even on the official ca.gov site. The current code says “420. (a) No particular form for the ceremony of marriage is required for solemnization of the marriage, but the parties shall declare, in the physical presence of the person solemnizing the marriage and necessary witnesses, that they take each other as spouses.”

    http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?division=3.&chapter=2.&part=3.&lawCode=FAM

    • Thanks! This post was written in 2011, and that section definitely needed an update. I appreciate the link!

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