West Virginia Officiant Government Registration Requirements
Learn what the marriage officiant registration requirements are in West Virginia. This page covers everything you need to know to legally officiate wedding ceremonies in West Virginia.
Learn what the marriage officiant registration requirements are in West Virginia. This page covers everything you need to know to legally officiate wedding ceremonies in West Virginia.
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A religious representative who has complied with the provisions of section 2-402, a family court judge, a circuit judge or a justice of the supreme court of appeals, is authorized to celebrate the rites of marriage in any county of this state. Celebration or solemnization of a marriage means the performance of the formal act or ceremony by which a man and woman contract marriage and assume the status of husband and wife.
For purposes of this chapter, the term "religious representative" means a minister, priest or rabbi and includes, without being limited to, a leader or representative of a generally recognized spiritual assembly, church or religious organization which does not formally designate or recognize persons as ministers, priests or rabbis.
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West Virginia Code § 48-2-401
Yes. All online ordained ministers, including those ordained through AMM are recognized in West Virginia.
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Yes. All officiants must register with the West Virginia Secretary of State before they officiate a wedding.
The Secretary of State in West Virginia is responsible for officiant registration.
All Wedding Officiants in West Virginia must be at least 18 years old.
No. Your state or country of residence is irrelevant to the officiant registration process in West Virginia.
Yes. You must complete and submit the West Virginia Marriage Celebrant Registration Form.
Yes. You are required to submit an official copy of your Ministry Credentials to the Secretary of State.
It will cost you about $25 to register as a wedding officiant in West Virginia.
You should receive notice of approval from the Secretary of State in about a week.
The West Virginia Code §48-2-402 requires that all wedding officiants are required to register with the office of the West Virginia Secretary of State before performing marriage. The application process is straightforward and is outlined below.
The West Virginia Secretary of State provides the following guidelines on officiant registration:
As of early 2021 the West Virginia Secretary of State has an online application process to register wedding officiants. Prior to this officiants had to fill out a paper application that was submitted by mail - this is now done through an online process. Despite going online, all wedding officiants in West Virginia still need to submit specific documentation reflecting their status as an ordained minister. Below are the two things you will need to successfully register as a "Marriage Celebrant" with the West Viriginia Secretary of State:
Let us walk you through the process of registering as a wedding officiant in West Virginia. Below are step-by-step instructions to successfully register as a West Virginia wedding officiant.
Despite going digital, you will still need to order physical hardcopies of your ministry credentials to submit to the Secretary of State. You are required to upload a jpg, png, or pdf of your minister credentials to the SOS when going through their online application process.
Because the West Virginia SOS requires a specific signed document this is something you will need to order. A printout of your digital certificate will not suffice. The document the SOS requires needs to have two signatures from Church officers. Anything less will not be accepted.
Your West Virginia Minister Ordination Package contains all the required documents for successful registration with the Secretary of State. Importantly, this includes your West Virginia Letter of Good Standing that is signed by two AMM Church officers and notarized.
After you receive your package from us you should scan or take a picture of your Letter of Good Standing as soon as possible. You can do this with your phone, or if you have a print/scanner at home, or go to a copy shop. In addition to digitizing your Letter of Good Standing we also recommend that you do the same for your Ordination Certificate.
You are not required to submit your ordination certificate to the West Virginia Secretary of State though you can if you want. Your Letter of Good Standing is absolutely required and the SOS gives you the option to upload additional documents if you want (such as your Ordination Certificate).
Though not required, we recommend that you also upload your Ordination Certificate just to provide the West Virginia Secretary of State with more documents validating your standing as an AMM minister.
After you have recieved your ministry credentials and made digital copies of them you can begin the online application process. The first thing you will need to do is create an account through the West Virginia Secretary of State's website. The registration page should look something like this:
You can find the Officiant Registration application on the West Virginia Secretary of State's website by going here and following the link called "Marriage Celebrant Registration".
If you have been logged out, you will need to log back in. Otherwise you should be directed to the "Marriage Celebrant Registration" application that should look something like this:
The fields should be pretty self-explanatory. If you are unsure of what to enter for "Denominatio" we recommend that you enter "Non-Denominational". This is what you should enter if you are not invoking any specific religious ideology into the wedding ceremony.
On this page you will upload your documents supporting your ministerial standing. Specifically, you will need to upload your West Virginia Letter of Good Standing. This is the document that has three signatures (two AMM officers and a notary) and the AMM gold seal.
The file cannot exceed 5mb and must be in one of the following formats: jpeg, jpg, png, pdf, bmp, tiff. We also recommend that you upload your ordination certificate as well.
On this page you simply need to make sure the form is set to today's date and type in your full legal name for your digital signature.
Before you submit your marriage celebrant application you will need to review the information you entered to double-check that everything is correct.
And finally, your last step is to pay for your application. As stated above, you can pay with any major credit card - VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover.
If your payment successfully goes through, you will be auto-directed to an payment success page with a work order number starting with a "W" followed by a string of numbers. This means that your payment was successful, not that your marriage celebrant application has been approved.
When your West Virginia Online Marriage Celebrant application is successfully submitted you will immediately receive a number of emails from the Secretary's office. One should be a payment confirmation and the other should be notifying you that your application has been successfully submitted and in que to be reviewed.
Pending there are no clerical errors with your application it should take the WV Secretary of State's office no more than a week to process your application and grant you the authority to officiate weddings in West Virginia. On average, expect your application to be processed in about 3-5 days.
It should take no more than a few days for the Secretary's office to process your application. Once you are approved they should notify you of this via email. The email should have a title to the effect of "West Virginia Secretary of State Internal Acceptance". In this email there should be a number of PDF attachments, including a digital certificate from the Secretary of State's office granting you the ability to perform marriage in West Virginia.
Your approval certificate should look something like this (minus the watermark and blurred out font):
You can also confirm your registration with the Secretary of State's Business & Licensing Search. Search for yourself by putting in your first and last name and selecting "Minister" from the select field labeled "Type".
Once you have confirmation that you have successfully registered with the Secretary of State's office you will have authority to perform marriage anywhere in West Virginia!
If you have further questions about the registration process you can contact the West Virginia Secretary of State:
Phone: (304) 558-8000
Hours: 8:30am-5:00pm M - F
Your next step is to learn how to officiate a wedding ceremony. If you have no experience, you are in good hands. Our West Virginia Wedding Officiant Preparation Guide covers all aspects of how to prepare for a wedding ceremony.
You will learn everything from the format for a wedding ceremony, the names of the ceremony parts, how to write a wedding ceremony, and more.
If the process of planning, scripting, and performing a wedding is daunting, then you need our Wedding Helper suite of tools.
We have distilled years of experience into an easy-to-use platform with training materials, quizzes, a personalized ceremony script generator, and tips to prepare you for performing marriage, all accessible through your minister profile.
That's only the beginning. After the wedding, you can share your wedding on the AMM Wedding Wall with our nationwide network of ministers.
Become a Wedding Officiant with Our Free Online Ordination!