State Wedding Laws
This section of the ULC.org outlines the wedding laws for states in the United States where many of our ministers come from, where weddings are frequently performed by our ministers, or both.
Please note that wedding laws are constantly changing and are occasionally interpreted differently from county to county within a state, even though multiple interpretations of the same law should not occur. The Universal Life Church Monastery strongly encourages its ministers to contact the county clerks of the counties they plan on performing weddings in before the ceremonies occur to ensure that the county accepts our ordination and to determine what forms of documentation and credentials they need to file for a marriage ceremony.
County clerks will occasionally refuse to give our ministers the ability to file marriage licenses from time to time, even if they have no legally valid reason to do so. Please contact the ULC Monastery immediately if you experience difficulties with a county clerk.
To see a more detailed and complete look at both US and international wedding laws, please visit our flagship website's Wedding Laws section.
The ULC Monastery has complied a database of the legality of gay marriage in every state in the United States. Click here to view it.
If you discover these laws are not up to date, please contact us at help@themonastery.org to inform us of the changes we were not aware of.
State laws of the states with the most ULC ministers
Please click on the links below to view the marriage laws of the US states where the most ministers of the Universal Life Church Monastery come from. If you would like to see a more complete list of wedding laws, please visit our marriage law database.
California Wedding Laws - 89,000
Texas Wedding Laws - 39,000
Washington Wedding Laws - 32,000
Florida Wedding Laws - 29,000
Illinois Wedding Laws - 26,000
Ohio Wedding Laws - 23,000
States where the ULC ordination is not recognized
While most states and counties in the United States recognize the ULC Monastery's ordination, a few do not. Ministers looking to perform wedding ceremonies in the following states should be advised that doing so may or may not be possible due to the following reasons:
Pennsylvania - every county in PA except for Bucks County rejects our ordination.
Tennessee - Our ministers are occasionally denied when they try to file for marriage licenses here. A 1997 Tennessee Attorney General ruling stated that ministers ordained through the Universal Life Church of Modesto, CA did not have the right to perform legally-recognized wedding ceremonies. This ruling technically does not apply to the ULC Monastery, which was founded in 2006, but some county clerks wrongfully apply it to our ministers anyway.
Virginia - every county in VA will refuse our ministers the right to file a marriage license.
