[oh8eleven]

Sometimes in very rural places, people didn’t see a real minister for years on end. So they married by moving in together ...
Yeah, along with a shotgun.
While that may have been true in the sticks, my great grandparents lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
I've got a copy of their 1899 church wedding certificate and written diagonally across the top, in bold letters, is the word, "Confidential."

[Little Bill]

I was looking in my Family History I had a number of ancestors who confessed paternity at the Church door before the ceremony, swollen bride syndrome, I think.