District Judge Sue Haggerty takes a photograph with the happy couple at each wedding she officiates. She says she always makes a copy and gives it to the bride and bridegroom. She's lost track of how many people she has married after 16 years on the bench.

Just as it takes two to make a wedding, it takes two parts to make a wedding official.

According to Judy Moser, Butler County register of wills and clerk of orphans' court, whose office issued 913 marriage licenses in 2013, a valid wedding license and a legal officiant are needed to make the “I do's” binding.

Moser pointed out that the burden of proof regarding the legality of marriage rests upon the people getting married.

“The IRS has requirements for a church to be established,” Moser said.

The term church is found, but not specifically defined, in the Internal Revenue Code.

Certain characteristics are generally attributed to churches. These attributes have been developed by the IRS and by court decisions. They include:

• Distinct legal existence;

• Recognized creed and form of worship;

• Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government;

• Formal code of doctrine and discipline;

• Distinct religious history;

• Established places of worship; and

• Regular religious services.

The IRS generally uses a combination of these characteristics, together with other facts and circumstances, to determine whether an organization is considered a church for federal tax purposes.

But for an accredited clergyman, Moser said, “It depends on where they got their credentials, what kind of credentials were given.”

“With all these Internet ordinations, it is a very gray area. There is no case law,” said Moser.“If you have a doubt, you could go to a district judge and have a quiet civil ceremony and then have the religious ceremony. That way you are assured it is legal,” Moser said.The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recognizes marriages performed under a valid marriage license by mayors, district judges, judges and in some cases former mayors and judges.One of the district judges that can perform marriages, Sue Haggerty, whose jurisdiction includes Saxonburg borough and Penn, Middlesex, Winfield, Clinton, Jefferson and Buffalo townships, said Internet ordination is as much a myth as the legality of common-law marriage.“The idea that if two people live together for at least seven years and refer to each other as husband and wife, that's a common-law marriage is a fallacy,” Haggerty said. “You must have a marriage license.“You can call them anything you like, but to be legally bound you must have a marriage license.”Saxonburg Mayor Pamela Bauman said, “I have married 10 or 12 people since I've been mayor. I was sworn in January 2014, and I've married a dozen people since January.“I'll go to them if they don't live too far,” she said, adding she's married people in restaurants, her borough office and at her business.Haggerty admits she's lost track of all the people she's married in the 16 years she's been district judge. She could always count up the photographs.“I've taken pictures and sent the couple a copy of the picture. I've done that for 16 years,” Haggerty said. “I would put them up on the board, and I would send them a picture.“A lot of people come here by themselves and they don't have anyone to take a picture, so they can have that as a keepsake,” Haggerty said.Haggerty added the state mandates she charge each couple $42.Bauman also charges for each ceremony.“I have several wedding ceremony forms, a traditional one, a nontraditional one,” Bauman said. “I customize them. I try to get a feel for what the couple want. Some have rings, so don't have rings. Some have witnesses, some don't have witnesses. Some come by themselves. Some come with 20 or 30 people.“They call the borough building, and I guess, maybe, word of mouth gets around, too,” she said when asked how people find out about her wedding services.Haggerty said she's used a two-page, 10-minute wedding ceremony so often, she's memorized it.Zelienople Mayor Thomas Oliverio said in his 20 years as mayor, “I've married quite a few of them, 80 or 90, I'm just guessing.“I've conducted weddings outside in the summer in the park. I've done weddings on the Gateway Clipper. I'm allowed to do it anywhere in Pennsylvania.”“I don't charge. I get a meal out of most of them,” Oliverio said. “If I have to travel a good distance, I will ask for expenses.”Haggerty said she prefers to perform weddings at her office only on days when she is on call as district judge or she wouldn't get anything done.Oliverio said he's often asked to perform at second marriages or ceremonies involving widow or widowers.His only requirement for a wedding ceremony?“The Lord's Prayer has to be in it,” he said. “If they don't want to have that, I don't marry them.”Haggerty said one bridegroom objected to using God in his wedding, but Haggerty said “I didn't want to lose God in the ceremony” and noted she is not obligated to marry anybody.The bridegroom eventually saw it her way, she added.Haggerty said the brides and bridegrooms have arrived at her office on horseback and in a horse-drawn carriage and dressed in gowns and tuxedos, military uniforms, bib overalls or “whatever they put on that morning.”Bauman said the people getting married in front of her are “mostly younger. I guess it's really mostly second marriages.”“They've already done the big, formal wedding, and they have children, and they will bring the children and make them part of the actual ceremony,” she said.Legally you don't need witnesses to make a marriage valid only the wedding license, she said.Bauman said, “When I leave, the first thing I do is go to the post office and mail the license.”“I guess I am privileged and honored to do it, I try to take a picture for a memory for myself,” she said.“I do have times with some couples when I look at them and think 'Don't forget this moment,'” Haggerty said. “Some couples you can tell are so sincere, I get teary-eyed myself.”“They have to realize it's a serious commitment, a very tough task. It's not 'Let's get married, we've dated awhile,'” Haggerty said.Still, getting a marriage license, or even getting married, seems to be less and less important these days, noted Moser.“In the past we've had as many as 1,500 licenses issued in a year. It's been steadily declining to the 900 to 1,000 range,” Moser said.“If young people are living and working somewhere else they might get the marriage there. And there are destination weddings. And the marriage rate nationwide is going down,” she said.

“I have married 10 or 12 people since I've been mayor. I was sworn in January 2014, and I've married a dozen people since January,” says Saxonburg Mayor Pamela Bauman.