Getting the license
You apply at a county clerk's or recorder's office, generally together and in person. Each of you brings government photo identification, and some offices also ask for a birth certificate. If either of you was married before, you will need the date the marriage ended and sometimes a copy of the decree. The fee runs from about $30 to a little over $100.
Timing is the trap. Most states issue a license you can use the same day, but several impose a waiting period of one to three days. Every license also expires, commonly after 30 to 90 days, and an expired license means paying again.
Making it official
A marriage becomes legal when an authorized officiant performs the ceremony, the required signatures go on the license and the license is returned to the county, usually within a few days. States differ on who may officiate. Judges and clergy qualify everywhere, many states accept a friend ordained online, some offer a one-day designation, and a few allow a couple to marry themselves with no officiant. States require anywhere from zero to two witnesses. Confirm with the clerk who may officiate and who mails the license back.
Then order three certified copies of the marriage certificate, at roughly $10 to $30 each. Insurance, benefits and any name change will require them.
What changes legally
- Your tax filing status for the whole year is set by whether you are married on December 31.
- Income earned during the marriage generally becomes marital or community property, while what you owned before usually stays separate if kept separate.
- Responsibility for a spouse's debts varies by state, but joint accounts and co-signed loans bind both of you everywhere.
- A spouse becomes the default decision maker in a medical emergency and the default heir, and most states prevent one spouse from fully disinheriting the other.
- Marriage is a qualifying event for health insurance, and employer plans commonly give you only 30 days to add a spouse.
Paperwork people forget
Beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts do not update themselves, and they override a will. Federal law does give a spouse automatic rights to most employer retirement plans unless the spouse waives them in writing. Update your tax withholding and your auto insurance, which often becomes cheaper.
Note Living together for many years does not create a marriage in most of the country. Only a handful of states recognize common-law marriage, and each requires that the couple present themselves as married.
