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Ok, so we've long been fans of the concept of “getting weddinged,” the act of having a wedding after you're already legally married. But one of our twitter followers @ayahthetiger recently asked us, what do you call it when (thanks to America's shifting marriage equality laws), couples do the reverse? If you've already had the non-legal wedding ceremony, what do you call it when you head down to the courthouse to make it official?
The best thing we could come up with was GETTING LEGALLED, @ayahthetiger seemed to like it too:
https://twitter.com/ayahthetiger/status/352215528758190081
We're always stoked to share all kinds of weddings (including courthouse weddings), so if you're getting legalled… consider submitting your story!
And now spill: who's planning on getting legalled soon?
I love that there is now a word for this. My non-legal husband and I will one day get legalled but now is not the time however when it is the time we’ll have something to call it.
Yeah, getting legalled is definitely not limited to LGBT couples — my friends Ben & Joriel totally got legalled 5 years after their wedding:
We’re getting legalled before getting weddinged and we’ve just decided on a date. That’s less than 3 months away. So we can totally apply for our marriage licence now. Holy-freaking-moley.
I freaking love this. I was so excited when the Supreme Court struck down (parts of)DOMA and Prop 8. The whole time I was thinking that I couldn’t wait for the fabulous weddings that lay ahead.
I think its so awesome that this website exists….it makes couples like my wife and so happy to see weddings like this
I have two friends who are getting legalled in a few weeks (on or around their anniversary date). I’ve been calling it “Wedding 2: Legalize It” when we discuss plans.
You’re awesome
Or perhaps Weddin’ 2: Electric Legaloo?
I love it. We live in St Paul, MN, “got legalled” in Des Moines and then “weddinged” in St Paul in 2011, now we’re “getting legalled” again without having to do anything (thank you MN State legislature and SCOTUS). We’re both relieved that we don’t actually have to do anything for this but my family seems a bit upset that we’re not having another party. Hm, Maybe a backyard “getting legalled (again)” mini reception wouldn’t be uncalled for.
I don’t know you but I like your family – #1 they’re all about re-celebrating your love! #2 it seems like on the regular lookout for an excuse to eat cake and dance! ; )
We are getting legalled! Our wedding was 6-8-12. Our leagalling is on 8-6-13. 🙂 It’s going to be intimate, almost like an elopement. It’s very exciting and scary. We got our license already and the fact that we were more nervous than the county clerk was quite comical. We almost burst into tears just filling out the paperwork!
“Getting legalled” reminded me of the invitations my sister and her wife sent out for their civil union:
“First we had a domestic partnership and got domesticated…now we have a civil union and are getting CIVILIZED!”
My honey and I are getting legaled on August 3. It has been almost 12 years since our non-legal elopement wedding and we want to celebrate this time with a blow out party with our friends and family. As an added bonus my husband and I are combining our last names and both using it as our last name. Our daughter has both of our names so it seemed only fitting. It was strange to go to the court house and fill out the permit papers. I felt like we we’re getting a building permit or dog license. I guess we aren’t that into the legal and government part but we like the official feeling and extra recognition and legal rights too. We’re so excited!
This article could not come at a better time! Thanks for DOMA being stuck down, it now makes sense for my wife and I to get “legalled”! We have been married for almost 2 years and hope to get legalled on our anniversary ( in September). Just thinking about the logistics for a courthouse wedding makes me nervous. Do we dress up? Invite people? Send announcements out after we get legalled?
We will need to travel out of state and that too is a consideration. Is there a waiting period? Do we need to be residents? Who can act as a witness? So many questions!
It might vary from state to state, but in California there is no waiting period and anyone can be your witness. Dress however you like and do or don’t have attendees/party/announcements. The ladies featured in this post already had a big wedding a couple years back. They invited me to this ceremony as their sole witness/photographer and are having a potluck BBQ with friends and fam to party. They are wearing the same dresses they wore to their first wedding. There are no rules here! Its a new frontier. Have fun with it, and congrats!
FH and I are getting legalled after his birthday (late August), and then we’ll start with changing his name (since he can’t just change it when we marry). We’re having our wedding 9 April 2014, but not really advertising that we’re already legally married.
This is exactly the phrase I was looking for! We had our non-legally-binding wedding this past summer, but due to temporarily living several states (and an ocean) away from our friends and family, we weren’t able to stick around long enough to both have a ceremony and take care of paperwork/legal marriage stuff. Because neither of us have birth certificates from our home state (even though that’s the only state either of us really have conscious memories of) and we strongly plan to settle down at home permanently, we wanted to make sure we’d get the marriage stuff taken care of there, even if it has to wait for a year or so.
Now the wedding and ceremony stuff is over, and as far as our social and unofficial lives are concerned, we’re married. Fortunately none of the legal benefits of marriage are particularly applicable, which gave us the opportunity to postpone the legal half of our marriage until our situation aligns itself.
But I guess this means I get to brainstorm about how that will actually come about… it would be fun to have a nice dinner afterwards or something, huh?