If you get married in a Unitarian church, it's legal, right? I know that's sort of a weird question, but they do commitment ceremonies and that sort of thing, so I didn't know if the U.S. government acknowledged actual marriages done there or not.
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LordRahlsFavorite
ANSWERS: 5
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Yes, being married by a Unitarian minister in the U.S. is a perfectly legal marriage, as long as you have a marriage license.
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It's not the actual ceremony that makes a marriage legal in the eyes of the government, it's obtaining a marriage license.
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All the church does is make the marriage a sacred one in the eyes of God. Joins the two together in a Union with God. You can get married in a courthouse, backyard, Las Vegas, someone's house, pretty much wherever you want to as long as the person who is marrying you has a liscense to do so. That is what makes it legal.
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Marriage is legal when you get the marriage license - and turn it back in (signed), and they record it (we had issues with them properly recording us). My husband and I are getting married at our UU church next month. We're already legally married (got married last year at the Courthouse), but this is our big Church wedding. Yay!
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Yes. Marriages performed by Universal Life ministers are legal too, so long as you get the license. UL and UU get confused a lot because they both have "Universal" in them. UU ministers study for three years and spend a year as an intern before they become ordained. UL Ministers send $5 to UL headquarters in Modesto and get ordained as fast as the mail will bring them their certificate. The denomination doesn't matter. The license, from the county clerk, does. You don't have to get married by a minister or in a church. In California, anyone over 18 can get a special one-time permit to officiate at a marriage; father, mother, uncle, aunt, best friend, Elvis impersonator, sky-diving instructor, hot-air balloon pilot . . . By "one-time" it mean it is good for a day, not that you can only do it once in your life. You could get one every day, if, for instance, you were a hot-air balloon pilot who specialized in weddings aloft, but if you were you'd probably just get the $5 UL "Ordination". I suspect most other states have a similar program.
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