A - If you are both Catholic & have never been married before...

If you and your fiance are both Catholic and neither of your have a previous marriage, you can establish your freedom to marry by the standards of Catholic canon law by means of the following documents:

A NEWLY ISSUED AND DATED Baptismal certificate. NOT the original certificate that your parents may have. The reason for getting a newly issued certificate is that, when you marry in the Catholic Church, the information about your marriage is sent back to the place of your baptism and is recorded in the baptismal register. Whenever a NEWLY ISSUED COPY of the Baptismal certificate is made a special form is used which has places for the baptismal information AND ALSO information about Confirmation and Marriage that has been recorded in the baptismal record. If a person was married in the Church, this information will be included on the NEWLY ISSUED COPY. If a person was not married in the Church, the space for recording the information about the marriage will include a notation of “no information” and this is part of the “proof” that the person was not married in the Catholic Church.

This newly issued certificate has to be obtained from the parish where you were baptized. It is possible they will not mail it to you but only to the priest (this is to make sure that no one tries to alter the document).   IMPORTANT - If either of you have a previous marriage, here is more information.