To go legal marriage or just ceremony?

Pumabird

My fiancé and I are struggling with this question. We live in Michigan which does not recognize same sex marriage, but we are having a destination wedding in order to be able to invite only the people who are supportive of us, therefore it will be a small group of 10. We keep going back and forth on whether to have a ceremony somewhere warm and fun, like the Florida keys, where it won't be legal, or have it somewhere like DC. She is in the mindset to make it more like a vacation for our guests and a thank you to them, I really feel like if we are going to have a wedding we should make it legal since we can.
The other question we have been wondering is what happens when it does become legal in our state, will we have to get a new marriage certificate or will ours carry over?

AndreaV26

I live in Michigan. It's my understanding that it depends on what happens when Michigan makes it legal. They will make the decision whether or not to recognize it from other states. I could be wrong though.

2dBride

1.  In every state that has recognized same-sex marriage so far, legal same-sex marriages from other states have been recognized retroactively.  (We've actually just been through this personally, as Maryland now recognizes the marriage we had in Massachusetts back in 2009.)  I suspect Michigan would do likewise.
2.  Similarly, if you ever move to a state that recognizes same-sex marriage, a legal same-sex marriage from another state would be recognized retroactively.
3.  The one big disadvantage of a legal marriage in your situation is that you would never be able to get a divorce unless your state recognized same-sex marriage or one of you moved to a state that did.  The reason is that divorce is always governed by the laws of the state of your domicile.  So even though you can get married in another state, you can only get divorced in your own state--and that can't happen unless your own state recognizes your marriage.

JENAMANDA

Me and My fiance live in pennsylvania and it is not legal here we decided in order to have our family and friends present we are having a ceremony or as ur pastor says a marriage here at home but the true reason why we are doing it here is because even if we were to go to NY it wouldn't change anything for us in PA so we will wait until it becomes legal in pa and have a commitment ceremony because really all your ceremony stands for is your commitment to each other and a marriage license is just a piece of paper.

beachek

we live in PA. we are going to NYC to get married, then having a reception in Philly. it's important to us to make it legal.