In 2021, a couple unknowingly got married in a UPS store and the story has been recirculating online. The man posted his story on Reddit, allegedly several hours after the whole ordeal went down.
Because they had to move soon because of his job, and COVID-19 lockdown restrictions made gathering large groups difficult, “having a real wedding” seemed “impossible,” he explained.
The UPS worker ‘signed, notarized the form and said congratulations’
This newlywed groom wrote on Reddit: “I got off work early today, and after getting home, my fiancée asked if we could go get some paperwork notarized for our courthouse wedding we planned to have in a month or two.”
They printed off a form from the county website and drove to the nearest UPS store. “The notary checked our IDs and had us sign, and then she signed, notarized the form, and said congratulations,” he explained.
All he believed they had left to do was go to the courthouse on whichever day they decided to get married. However, when his fiancée called the courthouse to check if she and her boyfriend needed to bring anything else besides their notarized form on their wedding day, the woman on the phone “corrected her by saying ‘husband.’”
They were shocked to find out their state no longer required a courthouse ceremony with a judge. “That form is literally the marriage certificate,” he said.
He added, “We had a honeymoon picnic at a park near a lake.”
According to the comments, this might not be that unusual
One commenter wrote, “Literally just a couple weeks ago I was talking to a waitress about how my fiancé and I were just doing a small Zoom ceremony in our hotel room, and she said, ‘That’s OK, I got married at the UPS store,’ so you’re not the only one!”
Another Reddit user said they’d also heard of friends getting married in UPS stores. They wrote, “My old coworker said he worked near a military base and said post office weddings were common. I never believed him because he was disposed to exaggerations, but this story... I lol’ed and owe him an apology.”
A UPS press release from a location in Florida called UPS stores “the perfect place for a wedding.”
The release said that, in Florida, notaries can verify marriage contracts from anywhere, and across the U.S., notaries are located in over 4,700 UPS stores. The press release described a 2014 story from a Miami Beach UPS location where a bride and groom needed an urgent wedding.
Jonathan Parker, operator of that location, said, “With a bit more notice we would have decorated the store and made it even more special.”
However, though somewhat atypical, this wedding seemed special in its own right. The release added that after Parker told the new husband to kiss his bride, “another customer, renting computer time, applauded the ceremony.”