Recent changes to the Ontario Marriage Act affecting Marriage Licences
The Ontario government has passed Bill 197, which includes changes affecting Marriage Licences:
SCHEDULE 9
MARRIAGE ACTCurrently, the Marriage Act provides that a marriage licence is valid for three months. The Schedule amends the Act to provide that if the three-month validity period includes a period in which there is an emergency declared throughout Ontario, the licence remains valid throughout the period of emergency and until 24 months after the emergency ends, if particular conditions are met.
This is a very welcome change considering the real possibility of a “second wave” of the pandemic affecting upcoming wedding plans. It costs money and time to obtain a Marriage Licence, and helplessly watching it expire because you’re the victim of circumstances beyond your control is unnecessary stress—as if wedding planning isn’t already stressful enough!
Looking more closely at the “particular conditions” mentioned above (see page 54 of the full text of the bill), we see that the couple must ensure that:
The parties to the marriage have not married each other since the licence was issued;
Neither party to the marriage has married anyone else since the licence was issued; and
Neither party to the marriage has legally changed their name since the licence was issued.
These conditions should be extremely easy to meet, since the Marriage Licence that was issued to the couple would be immediate void upon any of those conditions coming true anyway.
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