Host: Where do we get a marriage license?

Rev. Bill Cochran: Well the general answer to that is within the jurisdiction of which you are getting married. I happened to work in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC and so each one of those has different answers because I am sure wherever you are getting married might have a slightly different answer. But let me use those as examples. In the State of Virginia, you can get a marriage license at any courthouse, it is valid through out the State. In Maryland you have to get it at the courthouse in the county that you are getting married in, regardless of where you live or where you are coming from.

In the District of Columbia there is only one place, one district and you have to go to courthouse and get yours there. So it's very wise for you to check in, hopefully your wedding officiant can help you with that, but check in with the courthouse where you are getting married and find out what their rules and guidelines are. They also have different rules as to how long the license is valid. DC, it's indefinite. In Maryland Virginia they have varying restrictions and then other places have the amount of time you need to wait after applying for the license before it becomes valid.

So because everybody has their rules it's important for you to know what the rules are when you are getting married. There are several websites you can find if you will go into a search engine and find -- maybe type in 'marriage license in' and then put the name of your state or county or whatever and it should take you right to some of those answers.