Legally, marriage works like this: you confirm you both meet your state’s eligibility rules, apply together for a marriage license at the county clerk’s office, wait out any required delay, hold a ceremony led by an authorized officiant, and return the signed license to be recorded. Once it’s recorded, you have a marriage certificate, and a long list of legal defaults, from taxes to inheritance to health coverage, shifts automatically. Since 2015, every state must license and recognize marriages between any two eligible adults regardless of sex.1Justia Law. Obergefell v. Hodges 576 U.S. 644 (2015)
Who Can Legally Marry
Three eligibility rules matter in every state. You must be old enough, you must have the mental capacity to consent, and you must be legally single.
Age eighteen is the universal threshold for marrying without anyone else’s sign-off. Most states let sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds marry with written parental consent or a court order, and a few states have raised the floor to eighteen with no exceptions.2Legal Information Institute. Marriage Laws of the Fifty States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico Capacity means understanding what you’re agreeing to at the moment of the ceremony; someone severely intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, or significantly cognitively impaired cannot consent.
Being legally single is the one that trips people up. Bigamy is a crime in every state, treated as a misdemeanor in some and a felony in others. If a prior marriage ended in divorce, you need the final divorce decree before you can marry again. If it ended by death, bring a certified death certificate. Blood tests, once standard, have been almost entirely phased out as a barrier to a license.
Getting the Marriage License
Both of you have to show up at the clerk’s office in person, usually the County Clerk or Recorder of Deeds, to swear that the information on your application is accurate. Bring:
- A government-issued photo ID each: driver’s license, state ID, or valid passport.
- Your Social Security numbers, which the application form asks for in most jurisdictions.
- A certified copy of your birth certificate with a raised seal, in many jurisdictions.
- Proof that any prior marriage has ended: certified divorce decree or death certificate.
The application asks for your full legal names, current addresses, parents’ names and birthplaces, and prior marriage information. Get the details right the first time. They flow straight onto your marriage certificate, and errors cause problems later with name changes and passport applications.
The filing fee is non-refundable and ranges from roughly $10 to over $100 depending on the jurisdiction. Some counties discount the fee if you complete a premarital education course.
Two timing rules catch couples off guard. First, many jurisdictions impose a waiting period of around twenty-four to seventy-two hours between issuance and when the license becomes valid. Second, the license expires, usually within thirty to ninety days. If it expires before the ceremony, you start over and pay again. Line up the application date with your wedding date accordingly.
The Ceremony and Filing the License
The ceremony converts the license into a binding legal document through solemnization. An authorized officiant presides and signs. Depending on the state, authorized officiants include judges, magistrates, justices of the peace, and ordained or licensed clergy.
Ministers ordained online can legally perform marriages in the vast majority of states. A handful of jurisdictions require non-resident officiants to register or get a special license, and a small number of counties have questioned online ordination. If your officiant was ordained online, call your local clerk before the wedding rather than after to confirm the marriage will be recognized.
Witness rules vary too. Some states require one witness, some require two, and a few require none. Witnesses are typically adults, though not every state sets an age floor as long as the person understands what they’re signing. Once the officiant, witnesses (where required), and both spouses sign, the license is legally executed.
From there, the signed license goes back to the issuing clerk, usually by the officiant, within a window that ranges from about ten to thirty days. Missing the deadline creates headaches, so confirm who’s responsible for returning it. Once recorded, the license becomes your marriage certificate, the permanent public record of the marriage. Order several certified copies from the registrar’s office. You’ll need them for name changes, insurance enrollment, taxes, and other administrative tasks, and ordering a few at once is cheaper than coming back repeatedly.
Common Law and Proxy Marriages
Not every marriage follows the license-and-ceremony path. Roughly ten states still allow new common law marriages, where the relationship is legally recognized without a license or formal ceremony: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah by statute, plus Rhode Island and Oklahoma through case law.3National Conference of State Legislatures. Common Law Marriage by State Requirements vary but generally involve living together, publicly presenting as married, and intending to be married. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania no longer recognize new common law marriages but still honor ones established before their cutoff dates.
Proxy marriage, where a stand-in represents one or both parties, exists mainly for active-duty military who can’t be physically present. Montana, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, and California allow some form of it, and Montana is the only state that permits a double-proxy ceremony with neither spouse attending in person.4OFFICE OF THE STAFF JUDGE ADVOCATE 501st COMBAT SUPPORT WING. Marriage (Military to Military) The absent spouse must authorize a specific person in writing to stand in.
Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements
A prenuptial agreement lets you decide in advance how assets, debts, and financial responsibilities will be handled during the marriage and if it ends in divorce. State law governs, but most states follow principles from the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act and require three things: both parties sign voluntarily, both provide full and fair financial disclosure, and the terms aren’t so lopsided a court would call them unconscionable.
Skipping the disclosure step is the fastest way to lose a prenup. If one spouse hid a business interest or understated debts, the other can argue the agreement rested on incomplete information, and courts tend to agree. Each party should have independent counsel review the agreement. A prenup signed the night before the wedding with no separate attorney and no time to review raises obvious questions about whether it was truly voluntary.
Postnuptial agreements cover the same ground after the wedding. Courts scrutinize them harder because spouses who already share finances and daily life have a tougher time showing genuine voluntariness. A postnup is most likely to hold up when both spouses had their own lawyer, exchanged complete financial disclosures, and signed free of pressure tied to threats of divorce.
How Marriage Changes Your Taxes
Your federal filing status changes as of the last day of the tax year. Married on December 31 means the IRS treats you as married for the whole year, even if the ceremony was that afternoon. You’ll choose between filing jointly or filing separately, and for most couples, jointly produces a lower combined bill.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6013 – Joint Returns of Income Tax by Husband and Wife
For tax year 2026, the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly is $32,200, versus $16,100 for single filers. At most income levels, the joint brackets are exactly double the single brackets, so two similar earners don’t get penalized just for marrying. The exception is at the top: the 37 percent rate kicks in at $768,700 for joint filers but $640,600 for singles. Two people each earning $400,000 would stay in the 35 percent bracket as singles, but their combined $800,000 lands in 37 percent as a couple.6Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 That’s the “marriage penalty,” and it only hits high earners.
Filing jointly also means joint and several liability. Both spouses are individually responsible for the full tax on a joint return, even if one earned all the income or made the error. Filing separately avoids that but usually costs more overall and disqualifies you from several credits.
Property, Inheritance, and Retirement Rights
Marriage immediately changes how the law treats your property, and the rules depend on where you live. A minority of states follow community property rules, generally treating income earned and assets acquired during the marriage as equally owned. The majority use equitable distribution, which doesn’t split everything fifty-fifty but divides property fairly based on each spouse’s income, household contributions, and the length of the marriage. Property you owned before the wedding typically stays yours in either system, though mixing it with marital funds can blur the line.
Marriage creates inheritance protections too. If your spouse dies without a will, state intestacy laws guarantee you a share of the estate. If your spouse leaves a will that gives you very little, most states let you claim an “elective share” that overrides the will and guarantees you a statutory percentage, commonly between one-third and one-half, sometimes scaled to the length of the marriage.
Retirement accounts have their own layer of federal protection. Under ERISA, a married participant in an employer-sponsored retirement plan generally can’t name someone other than their spouse as the primary beneficiary without the spouse’s written consent.7U.S. Department of Labor. QDROs Chapter 1 – Qualified Domestic Relations Orders: An Overview If the marriage later ends in divorce, a qualified domestic relations order can divide retirement benefits between the spouses without triggering the plan’s usual transfer restrictions.
What To Do After the Wedding
Changing Your Name
Your marriage certificate is what lets you change your surname without a separate court petition. Update Social Security first by submitting the certificate and proof of identity to the Social Security Administration.8Social Security Administration. How Do I Change or Correct My Name on My Social Security Number Card? The DMV, your bank, and your employer all rely on Social Security records to verify your identity, so starting there prevents mismatches. Handle these updates within a few weeks of the wedding.
Health Insurance
Marriage is a qualifying life event that opens a special enrollment period. Marketplace plans give you sixty days from the date of marriage to enroll or add a spouse.9HealthCare.gov. Special Enrollment Period (SEP) – Glossary Employer-sponsored plans must provide at least thirty days. These deadlines are firm. Miss the window and you wait until the next open enrollment, which can leave one spouse uninsured for months.
Medical Decisions
Marriage automatically establishes each spouse as the other’s next of kin. If your spouse becomes incapacitated and hasn’t signed a healthcare power of attorney naming someone else, you’re the person hospitals turn to for medical decisions. The same default applies to emergencies, hospital visitation, and end-of-life care. A healthcare directive or durable power of attorney can customize these rights, but marriage gives you the baseline without extra paperwork.
Immigration
Marrying a U.S. citizen makes the foreign-born spouse an “immediate relative” under immigration law. Immediate relatives aren’t subject to the annual visa caps that create years-long backlogs for other categories. The citizen spouse files Form I-130 to petition for the foreign spouse, who can simultaneously file Form I-485 to adjust status to lawful permanent resident if already in the country.10U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Green Card for Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizen The petitioning spouse also files an Affidavit of Support showing the ability to financially support the immigrant spouse. USCIS scrutinizes marriage-based green card applications closely for fraud, so expect an interview and detailed questions about the relationship.