What ever your shared dreams are as a married couple, the wedding is only part of your future plans together, so your decision for those plans are a very personal choice. Once the two of you have a general idea in mind, then of course, the wedding day typically also involves family, so having a family discussion about planning, funding will family be helping with costs, or will you be paying for the event on your own?
Plan the wedding or elopement yes, even minor planning is needed for an elopement.
Marriage Licenses
There are tons of web sites, magazines, books and software to help with this. Or, you can hire an experienced and qualified event planner. In the Chicago area, we recommend starting by picking up a copy of Chicago Style Weddings magazine. It is organized like a planning guide and has a standard planning schedule of what tasks to check off your list each month.
For this blog post, we're going to leave it at that. Now, to actually get married in Chicago, you will first need to get a marriage license from Cook County. It is relatively simple and quick to do, but it is best to first visit the county's web site and read through the information.
Step 1: Prepare to get your marriage license. To get married in Illinois, couples must get their marriage license issued in the county where they are planning the marriage ceremony to take place. So, in Chicago, and closest suburbs, you need to get a marriage licensed issued by Cook County. Generally Illinois, and specifically Cook County, are not very strict with legal requirements, but there are some eligibility laws, required legal identification, and additional considerations if you are not a US citizen, and if you have been divorced.
You will need to apply for your marriage license together and in-person.
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You may do this at any of the six Cook County Clerk's vital records offices in the area. There is one location in the city of Chicago, at the Daley Center -- 50 W. Washington St. The marriage license is issued while you wait and is good for 60 days. There is a 1-day waiting period, so you have to get the license at least 1 day in advance of the wedding.
This is especially important information for couples who live outside of the county or state and are planning a to travel here for their wedding or elopement in Chicago or suburban Cook County. So, plan your travel accordingly, because the county offices are not open on weekends. Again, visit the county website or call find out the hours of the location that you are planning to go to. Be sure that your current legal names are spelled correctly, and that your age and place of residence are also correct.
If they are not, ask for a corrected license before you leave. Otherwise, if you don't notice anything is incorrect until after the wedding, it will be a bigger headache to fix later. If you are having a big wedding day, it helps to delegate the best man, maid of honor, sibling or a parent to be in charge of bringing the license and giving it to your officiant. Tip - the night before your wedding put a note reminding yourself about the license on the door of your home or hotel room, so it is the last thing that you will see before you depart for your ceremony.
In Cook County - Chicago and surrounding suburbs - no witnesses are required to attend the marriage nor sign the marriage license. Your ceremony officiant is the only person who signs the marriage license. Marriage court is NOT located in the same building downtown where you get the marriage license.
Cyndi's List - United States - Illinois - Counties - Cook - Birth, Marriage, Death
Marriage Court in Chicago is located at W. Early applications can be had from the Clerk's Office for the same fee as a license, but before the s, they have little, if any, genealogical information. Licenses do not include parent or witness names. Information generally found on these records groom's name, age and residence bride's name, age and residence date the license was issued marriage date and place name of the person who performed the ceremony Sometimes a church name is given and occasionally witness names are recorded in the bottom margin of a license.
Some licenses provide a space for a parent to sign if one of the individuals is underage. Although the early Cook County marriage licenses do not provide parent names, they can provide valuable clues for further research. For example, many times a church name is given, or if not, a priest's or pastor's name can often be matched to a particular church for a particular time period using city directories.
How can I get the marriage application with parent names? You may be able to get a copy of the marriage application by submitting a mail-in request to the Cook County Clerk's office, but unfortunately, the early Cook County applications have little or no genealogical information. For example, a s application might only include the name and address of the person who applied for the license.
That said, if you are turning over every research stone, it would be worthwhile to to try to get the application. If the marriage license gives you the name of a pastor or priest but doesn't mention a church, try checking a city directory for the year of the marriage. If the church name isn't mentioned under the name in the alphabetical section, check the church section in the front of the directory. If you don't find a match there, follow up with the indexes listed under the tab at the left.
Arrangement Licenses are arranged by license number which means that they are in chronological order according to when they were issued. After , Chicago and Cook County outside the city licenses are separate within each numbers on the films. The Cook County licenses come first, followed by the Chicago licenses. Example: Cook Cook Cook Cook Note how the s begin again Chicago Chicago Chicago Chicago Chicago Information generally found on these records groom's name, age and residence bride's name, age and residence date the license was issued marriage date and place name of the person who performed the ceremony Sometimes a church name is given and occasionally witness names are recorded in the bottom margin of a license.
Some licenses provide a space for a parent to sign if one of the individuals was underage. Search tips Although the early Cook County marriage licenses do not provide parent names, they can provide valuable clues for further research. How to Find Chicago Marriage Records.
FamilySearch for Ancestry's Cook County, Illinois Marriage Indexes, seems to be a reliable index for the years Anniversary announcements Divorce records. In a Nutshell There are very few marriage records before FAQ What information is on a marriage license? Most of the marriage records prior to were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire. When searching this collection, a record may show a spade icon. This indicates that the record has a numbering discrepancy. A second search may return an unmarked marriage record without the icon.
The collection indexes remain. Compare each result from your search with what you know to determine if there is a match. This may require viewing multiple records or images. Keep track of your research in a research log. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors. The following articles will help you in your research for your family in the state of Illinois.
Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Identifying your sources helps others find the records you used. To request editing rights on the Wiki, click here.
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