Intimate

Absolutely. We have a simple "Intimate" package that includes a pre-written ceremony text modified with a few of your wedding details. It’s an economical way to tie the knot if you’re interested in keeping things simple. Make sure you are aware of the minimum legal requirements by checking with the appropriate state agency.

We also offer a "Sign & Go" when you all you need is the license signed, and you can even add a small "Micro-Ceremony" to that.

Sign & Go: This is merely a license signing. There’s no ceremony performed, the officiant doesn’t get dressed up. We turn in the license to the appropriate municipality or county on your behalf. The officiant can optionally perform a micro-ceremony (and dress appropriately) as an optional add-on.

Intimate: A ceremony is performed by any of Chadwick Weddings’ officiants, and the ceremony is on the shorter side (usually less than 10 minutes) based on some basic questionnaire answers in the limited "Intimate Ceremony Builder" in your client account. The "Intimate" package is meant for a ceremony performed at a non-professional venue, such as a private home, a public park, or some other public space such as a restaurant. The ceremony cannot be attended by more than twenty-five people.

K.I.S.S.: This is a full ceremony performed by an assigned officiant. The ceremony itself is built from your answers in the K.I.S.S. Ceremony Builder in your client account, or optionally based upon one of a few ceremony templates made available as a starting point with a few variables thrown in that you fill out in your client account. You may alter the ceremony text however you like! You can add, change, or delete anything you want. In short, you are the one doing any sort of creative writing addition to the text.

The Perfect Fit: This is a fully customized ceremony text based on a much more thorough questionnaire placed into your client account, and fully personalized based on those answers. You will get the ceremony as a MS Word document to edit as you see fit. It is an original text written for your specific wedding ceremony.

In NJ, contact directly the municipality where your license was mailed/turned in. This will be the municipality listed on the top of your copy of the license (not necessarily the township that issued it!).

In PA, contact the county that issued the license.

This is information your township clerk might request. Your officiant’s title is Minister, and here is the company’s contact information.

Chadwick Weddings 6 Nantucket Court Medford, NJ 08055 609-975-9766

If the township insists upon the specific officiant’s name, please feel free to use it, but keep the rest of the information as is. All communication regarding marriage licenses goes through the company.

Happily!

We perform weddings for any loving, consenting adult couple who wishes to be joined in the beautiful covenant of marriage. To Chadwick Weddings, a same-sex wedding or LGBTQIAP+ wedding is treated with the exact same reverence and joy as any other wedding might be. We believe in equal kindness, respect, and treatment for all.

Chadwick Weddings has a beautiful rainbow stole and a rainbow handfasting cord available upon request.

Chadwick Weddings is currently licensed to perform weddings in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Maryland. We are happy to get licensed elsewhere if your wedding takes place in another state or even another country. We simply need to know well ahead of time in order to apply for and obtain that license.

Officiating a wedding is more than just the act of getting ordained online and reading text. It requires creativity with writing the ceremony itself. It requires a confident public speaker that can properly enunciate and professionally deliver that ceremony text with clarity, energy, and sincerity. It requires a person who can improvise and speak extemporaneously if something happens that might fall outside of the plan.

It requires general experience with weddings, and the ability to spot possible problems before they arise. It requires someone who understands how the license should be filled out and returned to the proper authority. Not knowing this crucial bit of information can actually invalidate your license!

This is your wedding. You have probably spent thousands of dollars to make it as perfect as it can be, and you put the tone of the entire day at risk if you don’t have a good, experienced, professional officiant. There is only one chance to deliver it in a way that is elegant, engaging, beautiful, sincere, easily understood, and confident. One chance. Trust it to a professional.

If you want to involve a cherished friend or family member in the ceremony, there are many ways to accomplish this without putting your entire wedding ceremony at risk. Anyone can buy a baseball bat. That doesn’t instantaneously turn them into Bryce Harper.

All of that said, sometimes it is understandable wanting to have someone close to you perform your wedding ceremony. There are things they need to know or they could actually cause your wedding not to be legally recognized! If this is the option you choose, owner Michael Chadwick offers an online video course for officiants in New Jersey to ensure they know everything they need to know about properly filling out the marriage license, performing the service, and what to do with the license afterward.

Here is a link to that course if you are interested: https://payhip.com/b/utBzp

The license to get married is something that the couple has to acquire. The fees for ceremony services performed by Chadwick Weddings includes delivery of the marriage license to the appropriate agency immediately following the wedding. If you want to turn it in yourselves, you are welcome to do so, but we are more than happy to do it for you.

Each county/township’s web site usually has helpful FAQs about the license and the post-wedding marriage certificate process.

The marriage license must be acquired in the state in which you are getting married, not the state in which you live (if different). While marriage licenses are not transferable between states, a legal marriage in one state (and its subsequent marriage certificate) is legal across the entire country and is proven by the marriage certificate.

When applying for the license, most townships (especially in New Jersey) will request the name, address, and title of the officiant. Ours is: Chadwick Weddings, Minister (if they request a title), 6 Nantucket Court, Medford NJ 08055, 609-975-9766.

After the wedding, you will get copies of your marriage certificate (the document proving you’re married) from the appropriate township or county where the license was filed.

The purpose of a rehearsal is to teach ceremony participants their procession and recession order (walking in and out), where they stand, and what will be expected of them during the ceremony. It is not normally necessary for us to rehearse, as Chadwick Weddings has been involved with hundreds of weddings and can say with a high degree of confidence that we can stand there and do our part very well on your wedding day. On the rare occasions we are asked to be part of the processional, all we have to do is walk in a forward direction, turn, and stand. That doesn’t usually require rehearsal either. Don’t waste money having your officiant attend the rehearsal.

If you do not have a wedding coordinator, we do offer services to assist with coordination of your wedding party and to teach everyone what they will be doing on the wedding day. This can be done the day before or the day of, depending on availability. There is a fee for this service. It is possible for our officiants to perform more than one wedding in a day. So, it is prudent to decide and communicate this need early on, to make sure your officiant is available to guide the rehearsal for you.

Because we sometimes perform more than one wedding in a given day, unless specifically requested by the couple, we do not typically stay beyond cocktail hour. If not already done before the ceremony, the marriage license gets filled out, your officiant will “grip and grin” a little with your guests, and then check out with you before departure.

Some couples have asked their officiant to stay and offer a blessing before dinner, which we are also happy to do if time allows and with advance notice. We do require being informed of this ahead of time, in the event the officiant has to leave for another wedding. Even if asked to stay to provide the dinner blessing, you do not have to provide a vendor meal, a seat at a table, or anything like that.

This will be discussed in more detail later, but the short answer is your choice of either a suit or a black cassock (robe). With the cassock (or the suit, for that matter) your officiant can also wear a stole (like a long scarf going down both sides in the front).

We are happy to dress in any way that is appropriate for your wedding. If any wedding is so specifically-themed that an entire costume rental or purchase is required, that exact cost would have to be reimbursed in advance of the wedding date, or the costume would have to be provided.

Each state’s laws vary, so it is advised you research your own state’s laws on this matter. Chadwick Weddings can only provide non-legal advice. From what we have come to understand:

In Pennsylvania, it is not legally permitted for your officiant to perform a wedding ceremony without a marriage license. Period. Any ceremony we perform in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without a license cannot use certain language (i.e. “pronounce,” “wife,” “husband,” “married,” “marriage,” “wedding,” etc.). Doing so without a license constitutes fraud and could result in the validity of your marriage being challenged.

In New Jersey, you can have a wedding complete with any and all typical wedding verbiage, including the pronouncement of you as spouses at the conclusion of the ceremony. It is very important you understand that this is not a legal wedding in the eyes of the state, and your wedding date for the purposes of any legal documents cannot be the date of your unlicensed ceremony. The marriage license will have a date range when it is valid, and we can have your two witnesses (who saw you get married) and the officiant fill out and submit the license to the appropriate municipality. The date which is placed on that form will be your official wedding date for legal purposes.

As a former wedding photography provider, it can be safely assumed that we are in favor of you having the best possible photographs of your ceremony. We always check in with the photography team to let them know if there is anything they should be on the lookout for, and to let them know that the officiant behind you at the ceremony will get out of the way for the kiss (especially 6’7″ Michael). 🙂

We do not restrict your photography team. We do ask them to be as professionally unobtrusive as is reasonably possible, and not to become a distraction to you or your guests. There is no circumstance in which any professional wedding photographer worth their salt should ever need to be up in the faces of everyone at the altar, or blocking your guests from viewing the ceremony.

The short answer is, yes. Both members of the couple must be present during the license application and each must provide valid identification. This includes a photo ID (usually a driver’s license, military ID, or passport) and a secondary ID that provides proof of a Social Security number (Social Security cart, ITIN doc from the IRS, pay stub, W-2, income tax form, etc.).

There are some counties in PA who do allow for virtual appointments. The last report I received on this stated that a virtual appointment may be made in the following PA counties: Berks, Bucks, Dauphin, Montgomery, and York.

It is highly recommended you do an internet search on the town/county in which you live (or if you live outside of the state, the town/county in which you will be married) plus “marriage license” to get more details.

Some additional helpful information:

If either or both of you have been previously married you must provide proof you are no longer married (i.e. a death certificate or a divorce decree).

If an interpreter is required, they must be an adult and provide current valid photo ID.

Many offices require an appointment for processing the license application. Most states do not require a witness in addition to the couple. However, in New Jersey, one adult witness is required to accompany you to the application appointment.

If one or both members of the couple are terminally ill, arrangements can sometimes be made to have the license application performed at a hospital. This is a question which should be directed to the town/county directly.