We Are Officially…
July 8th, 2008 @ 5:03 pm by Mrs. Canary
…allowed to get married!
Last week, Mr. Canary and I got up really early and made our way to the City Clerk’s office to register to get married. We were hoping to fill out forms online, but that isn’t an option. You have to physically show up (both the bride and groom– I tried to get the forms while Mr. Canary was out looking for parking and I was denied!) to get the application and fill it out in person.
There is an office in every borough and Mr. Canary and I compromised and decided on the Brooklyn office since it was in between both our work locations. All the offices are open from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM. We arrived at around 9:00AM and were out of there by 9:30. Easy peasy!
We read through the entire website to make sure we’d had everything necessary. All that was physically required was our driver’s licenses for identification. Other information that they needed: our names, addresses, birthplaces, if either of us intended to change our names, our parents names and birth countries… and that was about it.
Now after our officiant marries us on the actual day of the wedding, all we need are two witnesses to sign the certificate and then the officiant will sign and mail everything back to the bureau… and then it will be truly official!
And of course, the requisite photo:
One person in line asked why everyone looked so glum on such a happy day. Mr. Canary suggested that it was because most people have to rush back to work right after, although Mr. Canary, who usually isn’t snap happy, was grinning from ear-to-ear and looking for some innocent bystander to take a photo of us. He was so excited that everything about the wedding, particularly the marriage, was becoming “real.”
Did any of you have a hard time obtaining your license or was it pretty painless like our experience?
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7 Responses to “We Are Officially…”
We had a pretty easy time getting the forms. It was a bit weird for me to hold my right hand up and swear that I wasn’t making anything up and that my intentions were true in the AMA registry office. 
Our experience was fun and easy. My family all insisted on coming with us…think aunts, grandparents, parents and all, so my husband was a bit embarrassed but he was a good sport. We have a lot of pictures and great memories of when we went to make it legal!
Ours was easy–we walked three blocks to the town clerk’s office, proved we were who we said we were, and filled out surprisingly brief forms. The problem for us was that waiting periods + destination weddings don’t mix! When you’re getting married on Saturday, and roll into town at 3 AM on Tuesday, a three-day waiting period is not cool.
My cousin who lives in Washington got married this year. He asked the officiant if there was a specific time frame before the wedding that they had to go down and do it, and the officiant, who is apparently registered in both Washington and Idaho. He apparently is a little fuzzy on Washington laws because he said that my cousin and cousin-to-be could go down as late as the day before. Needless to say, they waited until the day before and were informed that they had to wait three days before it was official. So they had their ceremony the next day, but couldn’t sign it until 2 days after the wedding.
Hopefully, the officiant is now well brushed up on Washington laws!
from the time we parked the car in front of the county clerk building it was maybe 20 minutes including the 3 times I had to go through the metal detector, removing a belt, a watch, earrings… easy peasy.
I am going to have to mail mine in, which is sad, because I want to have this whole experience!
Mrs. Canary, New York
Age and Occupation: 24, Marketing
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Journalist/Editor
Engagement Date: February 16, 2007
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: October 19, 2007
Venue: Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers
About Me: I'm a born and raised New Yorker who loves all things crafty and artsy, food (cheese and dessert!), magazines, and shoes. I'm a power shopper always on the lookout for good deals or great quality-- sometimes I'm lucky and I find both! I love to dance and "shake what my momma gave me" but can also really enjoy a quiet night in with Mr. Canary and a good episode of Seinfeld or curl up with a good book.
we got married in vegas, so i got the forms online and had them all printed out and ready to go. the office is open till midnight, so we headed down there at about 10 and were back to our hotel by 10:30, and 20 minutes of that was driving! very painless, but i suppose the vegas folks have it down to a science.