When two individuals are married at the church, you can “Perform Marriage” within the system to combine the two individual families or add a new member to form a new household and add the marriage sacrament to each individual member. There are a few different combination scenarios that can happen during the “perform marriage” life event.
- If both members are registered in Directory, begin with the new Head of Household (the person who has the new family last name, typically the male spouse).
- If only one member is registered in Directory, you can add the spouse during the “Perform Marriage” process.
- If neither are members of the Directory, add the newly married couple as a family including their marriage in the Sacrament information during the registration process (completely skipping the “Perform Marriage” life event). For more information, check out this article on adding a new family.
To start, begin on the new Head of Household’s member page (note: the member must be listed as ‘single’), typically the male spouse.
This will bring you to the “Perform Marriage” screen. Determine if you want to add the Marriage Sacrament to both individuals or if this is a civil marriage. You can indicate that on the top of this screen.
Determine who will be marrying this individual. Begin by searching the database and selecting the spouse.
If the spouse is not registered at your Church, click on “New Member” to create a new member by entering their first and last name. Additional details of this member will have to be entered manually via their member card after you complete the entire “Perform Marriage” process.
After selecting the new member, you can either keep their current last name or change it. If you choose to change a spouse’s last name, their previous name will be recorded in the system as their Maiden name. Additionally, the female spouse’s title will be changed to Mrs., if it was never set or set to Ms., unless a special title was previously recorded for this person (such as Dr.).
On the right side of the screen determine the family’s new envelope number (the current envelope number of the Head of Household you chose, to begin with, will be displayed). You can change the family’s address and add the date of the marriage and location. This information will be recorded in the Marriage Sacrament Entry for both individuals.
The new family will display. Check over the family name styles, tags, and envelope lists to determine everything is set up correctly.
The individual status fields will be updated automatically.
Both individuals will have the marriage sacrament icon added to their member fields.
