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Saturday, December 25, 2010
Ind. Courts - At least one Indiana county will end courthouse weddings
Tom Coyne of the AP reported this news on Christmas Day. Some quotes:
[After describing a wedding in a small room off the Grant County Court Clerk's office, the story continues ...] In a county where November's unemployment rate stood at 10.4 percent, above the state's 9.8 percent rate, more than half the weddings for which marriage licenses were issued this year took place in the small space that doubles as a storage and break room.That practice will end Jan. 1. In another sign of budget-battered communities' determination to trim expenses, Court Clerk J. Mark Florence announced this month he would no longer allow his staff to perform the ceremonies because of personnel cuts and a courthouse renovation project that has put the squeeze on space.
Jennifer Daniels, whose 19-year-old son, Andrew, got married at the courthouse recently, can't believe the ceremonies are being discontinued.
“Some people can't afford any other sort of weddings. They can't afford for a church to marry them or anything like that,” said Daniels, who also got married at the courthouse.
After several years of bad economic conditions and tight budgets, some counties are running out of expenses to cut. Like many others nationwide, Grant County has already trimmed an assortment of services. This year, Florence decided the office weddings had to go.
“This is the pitfall of doing more with less,” he said.
Florence said his staff has shrunk, and he worries more cuts could be coming. His employees will continue to issue marriage licenses — about 460 have been issued in 2010, with 250 of those weddings held at the courthouse — but don't have the time for the ceremonies, which take about four minutes each, because of other duties, including child support collection and bookkeeping.
He said couples will still have plenty of options.
Other counties still perform the ceremonies. “In this county, there are 200 churches, 420 ministers, 10 town clerk or city clerk-treasurers, eight judicial offers and three mayors. All of them have the opportunities to perform marriages,” he said.
But most of those will cost more than a courthouse wedding. Couples pay $18 for a marriage license, but there is no fee for the ceremony.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 25, 2010 04:27 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts