The Wedding License

One Powerful Piece Of Paper
Without a license, your marriage won't be legal Educate yourselves early about state and county requirement, which can very greatly.
o Call your county clerk's office- ASAP to make sure you have time to gather the paperwork necessary for the application. Depending on the state the paper work may include notarized birth certificates and blood tests.
o Fees and waiting periods differ among the 50 states. In Wisconsin, couples must wait six days after applying to county. Wyoming duos, in contrast, have no waiting restrictions and everyone pays $25.
o Most licenses are issued at the time of application - Double-check this with your county clerk's office and be sure to take your state's waiting period into account before deciding when to apply. Just do not do it too early in some state (Hawaii, Delaware, Wisconsin), licenses are valid for only 30 days after issuance.
APPLY YOURSELF
In most states, the prospective bride and groom must apply for a marriage license together, in person. No proxies or stand-ins are allowed unless a waiver is granted. They apply at a municipal agency, usually the county clerk's office, in the town where they live. Out-of-state duos should apply in the town where they plan to wed.

Wedding Is trouble ahead?

Wedding planner reveal telltale signs of marital mayhem on the way to the altar.

Bride's- that breed of the bride who rants and raves her way to the chapel has become such a fixture of American wedding culture that a TV show and many websites and YouTube clips are devoted to the topic. Among the horror stories: the bride who demanded that her bridesmaids diet so they would look better in their dresses, and another one who wanted 38 cake at her reception. Of course, there's also the less-heralded but sometimes equally appalling Groomzilla, who who does things like including a deposit slip for the couple's bank account in the wedding invitation. These jaw-dropping moves make great tales, but such prenuptial antics can speak volumes about a couple's future. No one knows this better than the legions of wedding planners, photographers and florist who help more than two million couples marry each year. Kelly Dinardo asked a few wedding pros. about what they see as the sign of a good (or bad) union.
Sweating the small stuff in a big way
A New York event planner has seen her share of couple who can't agree on the small things, from the flower arrangements to the reception seating plans. Although some disagreement is natural, a screaming match over tulips vs. roses or chocolate vs. vanilla indicates a bigger problems. "If a couple disagrees over the minute details that really don't matter, or if there's a power struggle over little things, then that doesn't bode well," says the Wedding Planner of New York.