Illinois marriage license: the officiant's duties

Who can officiate. The Will County Clerk only issues licenses; there a ceremony may be solemnized by a religious official or other officiant designated by a religious denomination, Indian nation or tribe or Native group, if in good standing with it, or civilly by a judge or retired judge in good standing with the Judicial Inquiry Board (Will County Clerk).

How long the license lasts. For a ceremony in Chicago or suburban Cook County, the license comes from the Cook County Clerk, costs $60, and must be obtained within 60 days of the ceremony; the application can be started online (Cook County Clerk).

Waiting period. In Will County a license becomes effective the day after it is issued and is valid for 60 days, and the applicants appear in person before a deputy clerk, by appointment only (Will County Clerk).

Fees. Will County charges $35 for the license, taking cash only at its satellite offices, and a sitting judge at the Joliet courthouse marries couples licensed there for $10, with no appointment and no witnesses required (Will County Clerk).

Getting it back. After the ceremony the officiant files the license with Cook County Vital Records; only then can the couple buy a marriage certificate, at $15 for the first copy and $4 for each additional copy requested at the same time (Cook County Clerk).

Where it goes wrong. Anyone previously married brings proof of how it ended: a certified copy of the judgment if the dissolution was less than a year ago, or a certified copy of the death certificate (Will County Clerk).

Layouts differ from county to county, so the only authority on the form is the form in your hands. Read the officiant's block through before the ceremony rather than after it. It will generally ask for some or all of this:

• The date of the ceremony, and the city or town where it happened. Not the date the marriage license was issued, and not the county that issued it.
• Your printed name, and the capacity you are solemnizing under — minister, ordained officiant, judge, whatever the form calls it.
• Your address or contact details, so the County Clerk can reach you if something is missing.
• Your signature, on the officiant's line.

Sign it the moment the ceremony ends, while everyone is still in one place, and read every field back before the room empties. A blank or unreadable line is the commonest reason paperwork comes back, and it comes back to you. If something goes down wrong, do not scribble over it — ask the County Clerk how they want a correction made before you send it.

The ceremony is the part everyone watches. This is the part that goes wrong, and it goes wrong quietly — in a car, in a jacket, in the week afterwards when everyone has gone home.

• Put it flat in an envelope before you leave the room. Not folded into a jacket pocket, not loose in a bag with the rings and the running order.
• Photograph both sides before it leaves your hands. It is not a substitute for the original, but if the original goes astray you know exactly what was on it and who signed.
• Deliver it in person if the County Clerk is reachable, and ask for something that shows you handed it over.
• If you post it, use a service you can track. "I put it in the mail" is not a record.
• It is recorded when the County Clerk records it, not when you send it. Ring them a fortnight later and confirm it arrived.

10 days sounds like room. It is a weekend and a couple of working days, and on one of those days you will be recovering.

No, and this is the question the couple will bring back to you — usually weeks later, when one of them is trying to change their name. The two documents do different jobs, and knowing the difference saves you a phone call you cannot answer.

• The marriage license is the record of the ceremony. It is the paper you have been handling, and once the County Clerk has it, your part is finished.
• A certified copy of the marriage certificate is what the County Clerk issues afterwards. It is the version institutions ask for — a bank, an employer, the Social Security Administration, a passport office. A photocopy of the marriage license is not it.
• It has to be requested, usually for a fee, and it cannot be issued until the marriage has been recorded. That is why it is not available the morning after the wedding.
• You cannot order it for them, and you do not need to. Telling them it exists, that it comes from the County Clerk, and that they will want it before a name change, is the useful thing.

Everything past that — how many copies, what they cost, how long they take — is the County Clerk's to answer, and it varies from county to county.