Good friends and Family members of the BRIDE and GROOM, welcome and thank you for becoming here on this significant day. If you want a backup I am cost-free currently and would be happy to come and be a witness for you. Every couple is essential to participate in a pre-marriage plan such as an Engaged Encounter, or any other pre-marriage program authorized by the priest or deacon who will officiate at the proposed wedding. At the conclusion of the Marriage Ceremony, the Marriage Officiant, the couple, and the witness or witnesses are essential to sign the Marriage License. You will just be a witness on that day, not a guarantor that anything beyond that point has to be right.
In the Catholic Church , it is the bride and bridegroom who carry out the Sacrament of Matrimony (marriage), but a marriage can only be valid if the Church has a witness at the wedding ceremony whose function is to query the couple to make sure that they have no obstacle to marriage (such as an un-annulled previous marriage or particular undisclosed facts in between the couple) and that they are freely choosing to wed each and every other.
In occasions when you receive wedding invitations, study carefully to see which session(s) you are invited to. Most of the time if there are special dress code, it would also be mentioned on the invitation. As such, a witness is deemed competent for this objective generally at the age of 18. If applicants wish to have persons below the age of 18 witness the ceremony, we suggest they have two other witnesses who are more than 18 also observe the exchange of vows and sign the marriage certificates.
If you have a Marriage Ceremony outside of the City Clerk’s office, you will get your Certificate of Marriage Registration in the mail within about 20 days from the date when we obtain and process the Marriage License from your Marriage Officiant and approach it. If I was in your city (and not on the other side of the planet) I would volunteer to come and be a witness at your wedding simply because it is generally a brief and enjoyable duty.
Getting an official witness to a marriage is a extremely significant duty and provided the person meets the age requirements and understands the language spoken in the course of the ceremony, pick a person who you know would really feel extremely proud and honoured to fulfill this requirement for you. A. I assume I know why your parish priest stated that it was OK for you to serve as a witness.
