The following question was submitted to John Roska, an attorney/writer whose weekly newspaper column, "The Law Q&A," ran in the Champaign News Gazette.  The information in this article has since been updated and modified.

Question

Who can officiate at a wedding? 

Answer

Weddings in Illinois can be officiated by:

• Judges or retired judges;
• County clerks in a county having at least 2,000,000 people (currently only Cook county);
• Public officials whose duties include performing weddings; or
• Then-governing mayors or presidents of a city, village, or town.

A marriage in Illinois may also be solemnized in accordance with the practices of any religious denomination, Indian nation or tribe, or native group.  If those practices require an “officiant,” the officiant must be in good standing with the religion or tribe.
 

Question

Does the wedding officiant have to be an ordained minister?

Answer

No.  Religious groups may license or ordain people to perform marriages, but the state does not require that the officiant be ordained.

Question

Does the wedding officiant have to be religious?

Answer

The state does not require the officiant to be religious, but religious groups have their own rules about who may be ordained.

Question

What if the person performing the marriage wasn't qualified to do so?

Answer

A legal Illinois marriage requires three ingredients. It must be “licensed, solemnized and registered.” Who solemnized the marriage is the least important ingredient.

If someone wasn't authorized to perform a marriage, the marriage is probably still valid. The law says that a marriage is “not invalidated by the fact the person solemnizing the marriage was not legally qualified to solemnize it if either party to the marriage believed [them] to be so qualified.”

All that really matters is whether the spouses think someone’s qualified to perform the wedding. If an officiant is not qualified to do weddings, but you thought they were, your marriage is legal.  Further, if a marriage was licensed and registered, those ingredients are probably enough to make it valid.

Problems over the validity of marriages are rare. When they occur, they’re usually raised by an unhappy spouse who wants to invalidate the marriage or by heirs wanting to invalidate someone else’s inheritance. At least while you’re happily married, you should not have to worry about this.