Minnesota Elopement Laws: Marriage License, Witnesses, and Officiants

Bring identification proving who you are and your date of birth — a birth certificate, driver's license, state ID or other government-issued ID — plus what the application asks for under Minn. Stat. 517.08: addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, post-marriage names, and how any earlier marriage ended. Add the premarital education statement if you want the $50 fee.

The counties spell out the identification. Dakota County accepts an original or certified copy of a birth certificate, a driver's license or other ID card issued by a government entity or school, or a document from a school, immigration, a court or the government that shows your birth date. Hennepin County lists a driver's license, state ID or birth certificate. If you have no Social Security number, you certify that on the application instead (517.08, subd. 1a).

A Minnesota marriage license costs $125, or $50 if you have completed at least 12 hours of premarital education and hand in the educator's signed statement with your application (Minn. Stat. 517.08, subd. 1b). The figure is set in state law, so it is identical in every county; Hennepin, Dakota and Anoka each publish the same two amounts.

The reduced fee has conditions. The education must be provided by a licensed or ordained minister or their designee, a person authorized to solemnize civil marriages, or a licensed marriage and family therapist; it must use a premarital inventory and teach communication and conflict-management skills; and the statement confirming it must be signed, dated, on the educator's letterhead, and notarized or marked with a church seal (517.08, subd. 1b). Bring it to the application, not the ceremony.

No. Minnesota's marriage statute (Minn. Stat. 517.08) has no waiting period; the license is valid for six months from the day it is issued. Anoka County states the license is issued immediately and the marriage may occur the same day. The practical limit is your officiant's calendar, not the law.

The six months run from issue, not from the ceremony date you have in mind, so apply once the date is real. A license from one county is valid in every other — Dakota County puts it as getting a license anywhere in Minnesota if you will marry in the state — and Hennepin County adds that it can only be used to get married in Minnesota.

Two, both at least 16. Minnesota law requires a marriage to be contracted in the presence of two witnesses (Minn. Stat. 517.01 and 517.09), and Minn. Stat. 517.10 requires the certificate to carry the signatures of at least two witnesses “who shall be at least 16 years of age”. Hennepin County and Dakota County District Court ask for the same.

An elopement with nobody else present still needs two signatures. I can sign as one witness; the officiant cannot double as a witness, because 517.09 requires the officiant to be a different person from the witnesses.

Any individual aged 21 or older who has registered as a civil marriage officiant with a local registrar in a Minnesota county may solemnize a marriage (Minn. Stat. 517.04, as rewritten in 2025); the county of registration is recorded on the certificate. County ceremony offices and District Court judges perform ceremonies too, each on its own schedule and fee.

This is new. The 2024 edition of 517.04 separately authorized judges, retired judges, court administrators and licensed or ordained ministers alongside registered officiants; the 2025 edition replaces that list with the single registration rule. Registration is a county transaction: Dakota County, for example, takes officiant registrations online, in person or by notarized mail application for $15.50, and requires the officiant to be 21. If a friend is marrying you, have them register before the day. Section 517.18, which the 2024 edition of 517.09 offered as an alternative way to solemnize, was repealed by the same 2025 act.

Every elopement collection includes a planning consult, ceremony coverage, portraits, and a private gallery delivered in four to six weeks. I photograph courthouse, backyard, North Shore and Boundary Waters elopements across Minnesota and western Wisconsin; travel is included within 40 miles of downtown Minneapolis and billed at cost beyond that.

Current collections and pricing are on the elopement photography page. If the two of you are eloping without guests, tell me when you inquire and I will plan on signing as one of your witnesses.