Marriage Question

[Polo2847]

Anyone been to a marriage before? This is just out of curiosity. Well I'm not into religion, but what happens during a marriage if you don't believe in a religion?

[rpd453]

marriage, in the united states, is a contract with the state so it is a legal issue. When you get married, you are basically signing a contract with the other person, legally. Religious marriages are exactly the same, excepted that they also are (figuratively) signing a contract with God. So people who do not believe in a religion need only be married by a state-appointed figure

[Syvelocin]

A civil marriage.

There's really two aspects. There's the ceremonial and cultural thing, a wedding with the white dress and the ring and the vows yada yada, then there's the part of making it a legal partnership, recognized by the government and such. Most of the time you can kill two birds with one stone. A Christian wedding works as both, it is recognized as a marriage within the religion and recognized as a marriage by the state. Some people, for instance, those of smaller cultures or religions may have specific marriage traditions that won't be recognized as legal in the eyes of a court. So with that, it'll be a bit different. But if you want what we actually did in the ceremony, it was pretty much the same structure as every Catholic wedding I've been to, minus the prayers and the communion and the church and the priest etc. We actually wrote the vows ourselves, and then had a justice of the peace marry us in a private ceremony. We did all the fun stuff as well, I wasn't having it any other way. Just no religion. :P