I have already mentioned France, where I have attended a couple of weddings. That would not fly there: the officer must read the couple, in front of witnesses, the relevant sections of the Civil Code concerning mutual respect and support, financial support and responsibility, duties to take care of any children, etc., and they have to indicate that they grok all of that.
I suppose it’s meant to exclude a (far-fetched, of course) interpretation that only all of the listed people can an officiate a wedding, not each of them individually.
A couple I know went the Justice of the Peace Route. It was a normal day in court. The Judge made sure there were witnesses. The people available were there for various legal issues.
In the Quaker tradition, the couple marries each other by their own volition. No officiant is required. (YMMV in some Programmed or Evangelical Meetings.)
The work-around in Virginia is for the Clerk (or other chosen member) to sign in the designated space.
" Under Virginia Code § 20-26, a traditional self-directed Quaker (Religious Society of Friends) marriage is legally recognized without an ordained minister, provided the group chooses a designated person to complete the state-required marriage certification and execute a $500 bond. Unlike Washington, D.C., Virginia does not allow completely unsupervised “self-uniting” marriages where only the couple signs the license."
Given that the state admits marriage by some religious official in the first place, (as opposed to judges, justices of the peace, government officials, and so on), they cannot discriminate against Quakers or any other religion that does not have ministers; that would be outrageous.
The Virginia law appears to say that literally any person the religion is OK with can file the certificate, and that such a person explicitly does not have any power vested in them.
I was in the ministry for a while, got out of it, and now I don’t even believe any more. My signature is on at least seven marriage licenses is both Illinois and Missouri. One of those weddings was a secular ceremony that took place years after I’d last laid eyes on a pulpit. No one has ever asked me about my credentials.
I’m going to hazard that if the county clerk issues the license, then the marriage is valid regardless of whose signature is on the “Officiant” line.
Seriously, does any state really follow up on these things? Has any marriage in the US ever been retroactively ivalidated because of the officiant’s lack of qualifications? I’m asking genuinely, not rhetorically.
It sounds like there are not any qualifications, except being literate enough to fill out a certificate of marriage, and being accepted by the couple getting married.
Even the early-1970s Texas formulation quoted above does not sound exclusive, and even if one interpreted it as such, it mentions Religious Organizations, so all you have to do is mention to the county official how you happen to be a Jedi Master.
A marriage certificate could be found invalid for other reasons. If people lied about their name, or were already married, or were under duress, all sorts of reasons.
In Ohio, you need a state license to be an officiant (unless you’re a judge or mayor). The license is issued through a rubberstamp process, but it is still required, so even with the qualifications being totally loose, there’s still a bright line created by the licensing process.
What I can’t find are the consequences of a marriage performed by an unlicensed officiant. Void? Voidable? Valid but the fake officiant can get a slap on the wrist?
Didn’t someone mention in this thread about in Tennessee or some such someone challenged the validity of those Universal Life Church online-ordained clergy to officiate weddings, resulting in a protracted legal challenge?
Sounds like they have been winning at least some of their appeals, however:
Probably?
In Missouri, by statue, it is a Class C misdemeanor to illegally solemnize a marraige. But the marriage is not declared null as long as the participants believed it was valid.
Cites: Missouri Revisor of Statutes - Revised Statutes of Missouri, RSMo Section 451.040 and Missouri Revisor of Statutes - Revised Statutes of Missouri, RSMo Section 451.115
I can’t say that there is nowhere this is traditional- but I have never seen it except on TV or in movies. That might be because most weddings I have attended were Catholic and in a Catholic ceremony, the priest doesn’t say anything like that as it is theologically inaccurate. The bride and groom minister the sacrament to each other and the priest is a witness on behalf of the Church.
Really? That surprises me, although, as you say, you have mostly attended only Catholic weddings. I would say that in most, if not all, of the non-Catholic weddings I have witnessed, I have heard those words from the officiant, both secular and religious, as stated by the OP.
I bet people have attempted annulment on those ground.
I said it at the first (of three) marriages I officated but it was a little tongue in cheek. A good friend of mine was getting married in my town. I knew is wife to be fairly well because they visited here frequently. Neither of them were religious. He told me that they needed an officiant but they didn’t know what to do. I suggested that I could do it and he and I had a great laugh because there was no way she would go for it. He mentioned it to her and much to our delight she thought it was a great idea. Her entire family was from and she was born and raised in Modesto where the ULC was founded. The founder was still alive and he was a well known and beloved character around town so saying “by the power vested in my by the Universal Life Church” was very well received.
I really wish I kept my booklet but there was a history of the original legal challenge in California. The founders beliefs were odd but sincere. He felt that anyone should be able to be ordained and be a minister without having to jump through hoops. He was a Christian but the church’s only tenet is “do what it right”. It went up through appeals and the judge’s final ruling was that (obviously) it’s not the job of government to decide what is and isn’t a religion and denying one sets a horrible precedent.
I would have guessed that the enforcement is that the town clerk who accepts and files the marriage license is supposed to check the officiant’s credentials, and reject the form if they aren’t acceptable.
I draft a lot of memos that say, “so-and-so is qualified to do this work”, and i always look up so-and-so to check, even though it would be truly bizarre for someone to falsely claim this, and I’ll be shocked if i ever fail to find so-and-so on the list
The (many) Catholic ceremonies I have attended have always been a wedding ceremony wrapped up in a Mass. In the middle of the Mass the priest - sometimes without even telling the congregation he’s shifting gears - bergins the actual rite of marriage. After the I Do’s and rings, maybe the lighting of a marriage candle, it’s right back to the Mass without even a “I now pronounce you.” If you were raised Catholic, it’s as natural as can be, but non-Catholic guessts always ask, “Did they actually get married?”
I also know that while a state may not care if a priest is actually registered in a state to perform marriages, in practice a visiting priest is supposed to ask the bishop of a diocese for permission to act as a priest in that diocese. That’s a small formality if a couple wants to bring in an out-of-town relative to perform the wedding.
Friends of mine were married by a distant relative who was an ordained minister. Only later they discovered he had been defrocked. Their lawyer told them not to worry about it. This was in Missouri.
In the book, Wesley is considerably less concerned with that issue. When Buttercup says that she’s married, Wesley just says that “widows happen every day.”
Which is also very clever, but makes Westley more ruthless than he comes across in the movie.
In spite of apparently earning the appelation “Dread Pirate”, he’s surprisingly non-lethal in the film. But that’s a criticism for another thread.
Thank you for spelling the name right, after I got it wrong
Was that in the original Morgenstern version, or the later abridged version by Goldman?
Abridged - but surely the dialogue wasn’t altered to any great extent