• Most states have minimal requirements for ministers to conduct weddings.the marriage image by Warren Millar from Fotolia.com
  
  In the United States, more than two million weddings take place each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Association of Wedding Ministers reports that 80 percent of traditional weddings take place in a church or synagogue. State law governs the requirements a minister must meet to perform a wedding and the actions he must take to certify a marriage.
  
  

To Legally Perform a Wedding

• In most states, all that is required to be eligible to perform a wedding is that you be a minister or clergyman established with and recognized by a religious body. Few states have any restrictions on what constitutes a religious body. Your congregation does not have to have a certain number of members or be of a certain faith. As long as you are accepted as a spiritual leader and authorized by your congregation to conduct marriages, that is enough.
  
  Notable exceptions include South Carolina and South Dakota. Both of these states require that you be an ordained minister of the gospel or a rabbi established in the Jewish tradition.
  
  

Filing Requirements

• Beyond leading the marriage ceremony, the only other requirement held by every state for ministers is that you file the marriage certificate with the proper office. The time frame within which you must file the certificate and the office that you need to send the certificate to vary from state to state. For example, in Rhode Island, you must file the marriage certificate within 72 hours to the city clerk who issued the marriage license. On the other hand, in Indiana, you have three months to file the marriage certificate with the circuit court.
  
  

Record Keeping

• In most states, once you file the marriage certificate, you've completed your duties. However, some states do require that you keep records of all marriages you perform. Among these are Hawaii, Maine and Missouri.
  
  

Registration

• Most states do not require that you register yourself as a person able to perform weddings. They simply accept your credentials as a minister within your religious organization. However, some states do require you file for a certificate or license or that your register yourself as a minister who conducts weddings. In those states, you must take this step if the weddings you perform are to be legitimate. Among states with this requirement are Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.