If you have been married before, in order to get married, your last marriage should be finalised legally through the court. As a celebrant, we need to sight a copy of your divorce certificate so that we can record the date stated by the court that the marriage was officially dissolved. We also need to record the town or city location of the court that made the decision.
If you don’t have access to your divorce certificate, you can request one through the Department of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in your state.
Failure to produce proof of divorce means that we can not legally marry you. If a celebrant were to go ahead without proof of divorce, they could face very harsh penalties, including registration as a celebrant, as well as fines and prison time. This is known as bigamy and has a maximum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment.
An option that some celebrants may offer would be a commitment ceremony. This is not a legally binding ceremony and can not resemble a wedding. It is simply a ceremony where each couple makes a commitment to each other without official legal recognition of the union.
It is a legal requirement of the celebrant to make it clear to those in attendance that this is NOT a legally binding marriage, but rather a commitment of two people to each other. There are no legal vows, nor any legal paperwork for a commitment ceremony.
We hope this article has been helpful. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.