Was the state involved in issuing a license to the married couple in the examples you cite? From my reading, Southern states in the US started issuing marriage licenses to recognize only the marriages that they approved of - the ones that did not involve a white person and a black person.
Do you mean recent times? If so, which states?
I know in England you either got a license from the bishop to be married, or had the banns read three weeks in a row. The marriage was entered in the parish registry - the Church of England was a state church. Roman Catholic marriages were not legally recognized.
How this translated to the colonies and to the early states, I'm not quite sure. But marriage was recognized by the state to the extent that men were not required to support bastards for instance.
Mrs VS