Your Wedding. . . Your Way

Office of the Town Clerk, Town of Provincetown, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA  02657 (508) 487-7013.

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Hours for the Town Clerk's Office:  Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am - 6:00 pm at temporary Town Offices on Jerome Road. And, Open Friday at Olde Firehouse (next to Adams Pharmacy on Commercial Street 9-5).

The 1913 law restricting marriage of same sex couples to those who reside in Massachusetts or those who intend to reside in the state was repealed by the Senate and House and signed by the Governor on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 - effective immediately.

Therefore, same sex couples who are not residents of Massachusetts no longer need to declare an intention to reside here in order to obtain a marriage license. All couples, same sex and opposite sex, are now treated equally!

How to Obtain A Marriage License

In Massachusetts, a couple first files their intentions to marry, then there is a mandatory three day waiting period before a marriage license is issued. If you filed your intentions on a Monday, for example, the Clerk would then issue you your marriage license any time after 8 am on a Thursday.

You would then take that marriage license to an Offciant, like David Cleveland, and have the ceremony. The marriage is not considered a legal union until the Officiant conducts the wedding and signs the marriage license.

The marriage license then becomes a legal document and the original is returned, by the Officiant, to its point of origin (where you filed your intentions). A copy is forever kept as a part of the town's vital records, and the original is sent to the State Department of Public Health to be recorded in the State's vital records statistics. Marriage applications must be conducted in the Clerk's office with both parties present and cannot be done through the mail or via the Internet. 

Office of the Town Clerk, Town of Provincetown, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA  02657 (508) 487-7013.

A waiver of the mandatory three day waiting period can only be granted by a judge, the nearest of which is located in Orleans, a town roughly 35 minutes from Provincetown.

If you would like to pursue this waiver option, you can obtain a waiver from Orleans District Courthouse , the cost for a waiver from Orleans District Court is $195.00.

You can also obtain a waiver from Barnstable Probate Court, which only charges $65.00 for the same service.