Cache county marriage license application moves online

LOGAN – The Cache County Clerk/Auditor’s office is trying to make marriage easier.

That is, at least the part of marriage which involves getting a license to wed, according to Jess Bradfield, the county’s newly appointed clerk/auditor. Cache County has recently been able to simplify a significant portion of the process of obtaining a marriage license.

“Under the ‘Marriage License’ tab on the county website, there is now a ‘Marriage Application’ link,” Bradfield explained. “That’s new. When two individuals are ready to get married, they can click on that link, fill in the required formation and submit it.”

The couple desiring to wed will still have to visit the Clerk/Auditor’s Office in the County Administration Building, Bradfield acknowledges, but that visit will now be less time-consuming.

The only items of personal information from would-be spouses that the county cannot collect online for security reasons are birth dates and social security numbers. That information will have to be supplied when the couple comes to pick up their license

“Filling out the marriage application in advance should still save at least 15 minutes during that visit,” the new clerk/auditor emphasizes. “Previously, we would have to have the couple give us all that information line-by-line during their face-to-face visit.

“Now they will just have to fill out the application form online, come in to give us those two sensitive items of information, pick up their license and be on their way. The whole visit shouldn’t take more than five minutes, compared to 15 to 30 minutes the old way.”

Cache County’s GOP central committee members tapped Bradfield in late September to serve out the unexpired term of former Clerk/Auditor Jill Zollinger, who retired abruptly in August. During a special election on Sept. 19, Bradfield pledged to modernize and streamline the policies and procedures of his new office.

Simplifying the process of obtaining a marriage license is just the first of those promised changes, he says.

“Although we’re on our way to achieving some of the pledges that I made prior to being appointed,” Bradfield adds, “I’ve promised my staff that we’ll hold off on everything else until after the November election.

“But we did want to do something to demonstrate our capability to modernize and streamline operations while showing the direction that the clerk/auditor’s office will take in the future.”