Signing the Marriage Certificate

Thirteen years ago I travelled with my parents to Canada for Joy and Geoff's wedding. This was my first time attending a wedding in Canada. It was held outside along the water and was just beautiful. One thing that took place during the ceremony was the bride and groom sat down at a table and signed their marriage certificate. This was new to me and I was intrigued.

My parents and I referenced it often and think I always had in the back of my mind the idea of doing that when I got married. I was shocked to notice how insignificant this process was in the weddings I was in. In one wedding it was signed the night of the rehearsal after we were done rehearsing. In another wedding it was signed on the back of the best man in the parking lot as we walked across it to take pictures. And because this piece of paper is what actually makes the marriage legal, I just felt that is should have greater significance during the wedding ceremony.

When it came time to plan my wedding with Jim, I shared the idea with him and he liked it. We used a beautiful table linen that had belonged to my grandma and placed the toss-bouquet on the table. The funny thing was, things are a little different here in America. We had to sign the marriage license when we bought it at the courthouse. The only signatures it needed were the witnesses and the pastor. So we decided to also have a "momento" marriage certificate to sign. Long-story-short, things didn't quite work out the way I planned and Jim and I didn't end up signing anything during the ceremony. But it was still a lovely part of the ceremony and I'm glad we included it.


Being at Darcy and Holly's wedding we got to see this happen again. I think I will make it my crusade to get American's to make this a normal tradition. And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll just move to Canada.