You can obtain a marriage license and/or have your ceremony on the 3rd floor of the Orange County Courthouse in downtown Orlando in room 350.

The cost of a marriage license is $86.00. The cost is reduced to $61 if you’ve taken an online premarital course. The ceremony fee is $30.

They take cash, money order, cashier’s check (payable to the Orange County Clerk of Courts)
MasterCard, Visa, Discover or American Express. They have a $3.50 surcharge for all credit card transactions.

Yes! Wherever you’re from in the world, you can get married in Orlando! This page has info for non-Florida residents getting a marriage license.

If you’re a Florida resident, and you can prove you’ve taken a premarital course, you can get your license and get married on the same day. If you haven’t taken the course, there will be a 3 day waiting period between your license and your ceremony. There is no waiting period or course requirement if you’re not from Florida. This page has everything you need to know about it.

Nope. There’s a place for 2 witnesses on your certificate, but that’s a novelty and not required.

The ceremony room at the courthouse isn’t the smallest one I’ve seen but not the largest. There are a lot of live laugh love type decorations on the walls. The room is a bit dim but I’m good with a flash so that doesn’t matter.

Different courthouses have a different number of chairs for guests. You can see a lot of them on this page to pick the one that’s right for you. The Orlando courthouse will tell you that you can only have 7 guests even though there are 12 chairs. Regardless, in my experience, they don’t turn your guests away once they show up. The most I’ve seen crammed in that room was 45 people.

If your group is noisy they will be asked to wait outside until your ceremony. Remember that there are a lot of people there doing all kinds of business and it’s important to be mindful of them.

Unfortunately, no. The clerks do the ceremonies.

Yes!I haven’t experienced a Florida courthouse that doesn’t allow photography.

The ceremony can be less than 3 minutes unless couples bring their own vows to read to each other, which they do allow.

A marriage license is a document that says you’re ready to get married. When the clerk or officiant marries you, they sign the license and once it is certified and filed by the county, it has now become official and is a marriage certificate that you can use to prove you are married. This is the document that you keep.

If this is a question of the best light for photos, that will change depending on the season. In the winter I always recommend snagging the last appointment of the day so you can get that juicy light nearing golden hour. Any other time of the year, it won’t make a difference what time your appointment is—the light will always be full brightness unless it’s cloudy.

If your appointment it first thing in the morning, leave some extra time to find parking and get through security. This is usually when people are arriving at the courthouse for jury duty or other official business and it can be busy.

Many people think that the ceremony will be faster if they get their license on a different day. On ceremony day, you will be doing all of the same steps as you’d do during your license appointment (take a ticket, wait to be called to the counter, do business at the counter) the only time you’re saving is about 5 minutes at the window.

Mondays can be super busy. Fridays can also be busy, but people are in a better mood and if you make your appointment at the end of the day, they’ll get you out of there fast and there are fewer people milling around in the background of your photos outside.

Special dates and holidays are very busy with people getting married at the courthouse. Obviously, Valentine’s Day but also dates that are like 2-2-22 or 2-3-23 are very popular.
 
There’s always a chance that on any day of the week there’s a big case happening in the court and there are a lot of jurors or spectators or press. So it’s not 100% predictable and you really should choose your date based on your convenience or if there’s a particular date that means something to you.

And at the end of the day, any factors that might make your time at the courthouse longer can be mitigated by being early enough to get through security and get upstairs in time for your appointment.

Fear not! There is a 15 minute grace period and after that, you will just be considered a walk-in. If you’re more than 15 minutes late, It will take longer to get to you, but you can still get married. I always tell my couples to arrive 10-15 mins early to get through security and get upstairs in time.

When you are getting your license, you need to bring your ID (Florida ID if you’re a resident), proof you took the pre-marital course (you only need this if you are a Florida resident and want to get married on the same day), and if you have children together who were born in Florida, you need to bring the “Affirmation of Common Children Born in Florida form”. Remember to complete the online marriage license application before you arrive for your appointment. If you don’t do this, you will need to complete a paper version during your appointment and this can cause significant delays.

If you have already gotten your marriage license, you only need to bring that and your ID. If you are getting your marriage license at the same time, see the above question about what to bring for your marriage license appointment.