A By-the-Sea Wedding with The Monterey Stone Marriage Chapel is authorized by the County of Monterey to issue the California Confidential Marriage License. Here is one more way that hassle free weddings come into play. We can issue this license at a moments notice. This is a legal marriage license that is accepted in all fifty states and around the world. If you have any questions about the legality of this license we welcome you to phone the Monterey County Clerk at (831) 755-5450 to verify our credentials. We will do all of the filing with The Monterey County Clerk so you don't have to.

HISTORY OF THE CONFIDENTIAL MARRIAGE LICENSE

The Confidential Marriage License was originally created in the 1800's to protect confidentiality. At that time, it was common for people already living together not to get married because they feared that other people would learn that they weren't married all along. The Confidential Marriage License is not open record, which means it requires your signature to obtain a copy.

If you are married under the authority of a license issued by the County Clerk as opposed to the Confidential Marriage License, your license will be open to public inspection. Anyone who wishes may go to the County Clerk's office and look at marriage licenses and all of the personal information contained in it. They may do this for any reason. Many business people regularly look through the marriage licenses to get information about the people which can be used for various solicitations such as the sale of life insurance.

But the Confidential Marriage Certificate is NOT available for this purpose. Only you may get certified copies of the Certificate. You are the only one who controls access to the document. If someone wants a copy of your certificate and you refuse to give it to them, they will have to get a court order to obtain it. Of course, the court would not give such an order to anyone without good cause.

The Confidential Marriage Certificates that we issue are filed in Monterey County. You can always get additional certified copies of your Marriage Certificate by writing to:

Monterey County Clerk
PO Box 29
Salinas, CA 93902
(831) 755-5450

The California Confidential Marriage Certificate has never required a blood test, and there is no waiting period. You must, however, both be at least 18 years old, and you must already be living together to quality for this Certificate. A valid ID must be presented at the time of issuing.

If you do not meet these requirements, we can advise you on purchasing a public license directly through a courthouse in your general area.