Newbie question: how do marriage certificates happen?

I've just spotted a glaring hole in my carefully crafted plans. According to my "if it all goes perfectly" schedule, the day after we marry (in Tennessee) we're going to do all of hubby's UK visa stuff, up to the point of booking his biometrics appointment. 

Where do marriage certificates come from? How do they 'happen'? Is it something that the minister provides when he marries us, or do we have to go down to the court house later to collect it? Is there a delay involved?

I can't believe I overlooked this particular piece of documentation!

The minister should be able to provide you the certificate, but it won't be certified unless the minister is also a notary (my minister is one, so we just bring him a 10 dollar notary fee and we leave with a certified copy) It would be worth giving them a call and see what their policy is, or if they know where a notary is in town and you can get it done afterwards. Good Luck!!

Brilliant, thank you, that's just what I needed to know.

I suggest calling locally and finding out what the procedure is to obtain your marriage certificate.  The procedure (and possible waiting times, if applicable) may vary from place to place.

For example, in my state and town, once you are married, the person who performs the marriage sends the completed marriage certificate to the town hall where you filed your marriage intentions.  That town hall will then send you a notarized copy of the certificate within the next 2 weeks.  

So, in my situation, I didn't get a copy of my marriage certificate until about 2 weeks after the marriage.  

Yes, definitely check with your local authority.  And don't forget that, before you get married, you'll generally need a marriage license, which is different than the marriage certificate that you get afterward.

In our case, it was the County Clerk we had to see for the license.  Then our minister had to mail the signed license to the Register of Deeds after the wedding.  We were able to pick it up at the RoD office one business day after they'd received it. 

I know this is really late but when I went in with my husband to apply for my marriage license they told me that if I needed the paperwork straight away I could have my officiate fill out the forms and I could hand walk them in to the office and they'd provide me with a certified copy right then and there.  As I didn't need it for a while I just let them mail the copy to me instead.  Could be an option for you though! 

Hi everybody, well we've just had a lovely wedding in Tennessee, absolutely perfect. We went to the county court the day before to get our marriage licence and I asked the clerk about obtaining an official certificate.

She gave me two stamped certificates, she said in Tennessee they try to make the process as easy as possible and all I had to do was to get the minister to sign *here*, *here* and *here* and to return *this form* to them so that they could lodge it with Nashville. I said, "ah, a copy of the Nashville document is what I'll need", but she said that if I apply to Nashville after it's lodged, all I get is a certificate identical to one of the two that she had already provided me. She said that the certificate I had (once signed by the minister) was the official, legal certificate that I should use with any authorities, such as those that I needed to change my name with. She said that there was no alternative, no "more official" document than the one that I had.

I hope she's right as hubby has used it to apply for his visa. Fingers crossed.

Actually you should have gotten the one from Nashville as it's not a legal document until it's been recorded and prinited on the Official State paper. Fingers crossed they let you slide.

The one I submitted was also just the one from the local registrar and I had no problems when applying for my visa.  (In fact, they didn't even notice my birthdate was listed incorrectly on the marriage cert, lol.  And don't worry I've had it fixed!)