Cook County- 3 weeks for marriage certificate?

deedeedor

I went to the office of the clerk today and was told our marriage license hasn't been processed yet.  The guy at the counter said it takes up to 3 weeks to process- something about processing them in big batches?  We're at week 2.5 now.

Anyone else run into this?  Does this sound right?

raeyn

Are you talking about the license or the certificate? I thought you could get the license right away, but someone from the Clerk's office told me that when you hand in (or mail) your signed license after you get married, it takes 5-7 days before you can get your certificate (which is not automatic - you have to order it). I've never heard about waiting 3 weeks for either... now I'm worried.

deedeedor

Certificate- we're married as of November 7th.  The license is given to you on the spot.  I know I can get the certificate on the spot as well- our minister mailed in our signed license the week following the wedding.  I may have to wait for a few minutes, but I had never heard of 3 weeks for processing the license/issuing the certificate.

duckie1905

Are you talking about the lag time between when the certificate is received by the county and processed in the computers?

I worked for the county.  Marriage certficates are not issued instantly after you get married.  The officiant sends the signed license in and I've seen it take anywhere from 2-4 weeks to become available.  They are not available the day of/after/or for a number of weeks until after the license was received by the county.  The license is recorded by the county employee and the certificate isn't available until after the information has been entered into the system.

http://www.cookctyclerk.com/sub/marriage_certificates.asp

raeyn

Duckie1905, could you just clarify this for me? Are you saying that once the Clerk's office receives our signed license, it may take 2-4 weeks before we are able to get our marriage certificate?

I'm kind of freaking out because I have to apply for permanent residency as soon as possible after I'm married and I need the official certificate to do that. I had already looked through the information on the Clerk's Office website, and it didn't seem to say how long it would take, so I emailed them and they responded with this:

"It takes 5-7 business days for certified copies of the marriage license to be available to you after we receive the marriage license back in our office."

duckie1905

I've never heard 5-7 business days; we were told to tell people to expect that it take at least 2 weeks.  But, if you got an email response saying 5-7 business days I would bring a copy of that email with you tomorrow and give them a hard time.

duckie1905

And that time does not include the time it took your officiant to mail the license in.  That time includes the time after the license is received by the county.