Marriage license duties
What the officiant does with the marriage license, in every state
The officiant returns the signed marriage license in 46 of the 51 US jurisdictions, the couple returns it in 2, and either may in 3. Deadlines run from 3 days to 90. In 36 jurisdictions the license does not go back to a county clerk at all — it goes to a probate judge, a town clerk, a Register of Deeds, or a state health department.
This is the part of officiating nobody warns you about. The ceremony is the hour everyone watches; the license is the ten minutes afterwards that decides whether the marriage is on the record. Get it wrong and the couple finds out months later, when someone tries to change a name.
Every page below is built from one row of sourced data: who returns it, to which office, by when, how many witnesses sign, and whether you had to register before the day. Each field links to the statute or vital-records page it was read from, and each says how good that check was. 50 of 51 were read from the state's own statute, legislature, or vital-records page; the remaining 1 were confirmed through a statute mirror, and say so.
Registering as an officiant is a separate errand from returning the license, and in 13 jurisdictions it has to be done before the day. Getting ordained online, and where you have to register afterwards covers that half. How to officiate a wedding covers the hour itself.
Two ceremonies on this site involve none of this: a vow renewal and a commitment ceremony have no license and nothing to file afterwards. An elopement does — and how many witnesses have to sign is one of the things that varies by state below.
Where we do not know, the page says so. Connecticut, Massachusetts and West Virginia set no fixed number of days; Connecticut and West Virginia do not state a witness count on the page we read. Those print as what is missing, not as a guess.
Choose your state
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Questions people ask before the wedding
Who signs the marriage license?
The couple, the officiant, and — in most states — one or two witnesses. Who physically returns the signed license to the issuing office is a separate question, and the answer differs by state: the officiant in 46 jurisdictions, the couple in 2, either in 3.
How long does an officiant have to return the marriage license?
It ranges from 3 days to 90, depending on the state. Connecticut, Massachusetts and West Virginia set no fixed number of days at all — each runs to a calendar date in the month after the wedding instead. Watch the starting line too: a few states count from the day the license was issued rather than from the ceremony. The state page gives the exact wording and links to where it was read.
Does the marriage license always go back to a county clerk?
No, and this is the most common mistake. Of the 51 jurisdictions here, 36 return the license somewhere other than a county clerk — a probate judge in Ohio, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama; a town clerk in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island; the Department of Health in Hawaii; the Orphans’ Court in Pennsylvania; a Register of Deeds in North Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Do I have to register as an officiant before the wedding?
In 13 of the 51 jurisdictions there is something to do before the day: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Vermont and West Virginia. What it is differs — a court appointment, a registration with a clerk, a rule that only bites on an out-of-state officiant. Virginia has no statewide registration and leaves it to the circuit court, county by county. The rest have none on record. Each state page quotes its own.
These pages are informational, not legal advice. Deadlines and duties change — Alabama abolished the marriage license entirely in 2019, and Utah recodified its marriage title in 2024. Confirm every detail with the office that issued the license. Statutes read .
The paperwork is one page of it.
The rest is the ceremony itself — the full script, a run-sheet with the timing worked out, printed cue cards, a rehearsal checklist, and your state's license sheet ready to print.