Danno9775

Your laws may be different in your city.  You'll need to check with your courthouse.

Interesting. I guess I'll just pay for the license and wait the 3 days. As long as the marriage is planned within 60 days I feel better. Feels like I've done all I can to make things right with God.

Interesting. I guess I'll just pay for the license and wait the 3 days. As long as the marriage is planned within 60 days I feel better. Feels like I've done all I can to make things right with God.

A bishop in the USA can't legally marry you without a license.
In my city, back in those days, you can get a marriage license and get married on the same day.  They have since changed the law such that you have to wait 3 days after issuance of the license to get married - unless you attend a marriage seminar.

Interestingly enough, if you live in a common-law marriage state, you can also get married at the tax desk by filing a joint tax return and agreeing to be married.   Alabama, Colorado, District of Columbia, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma (maybe), Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah.*
(* I'm no lawyer or tax professional, so make sure you get competent advice if you want to explore this as an option.)

I hear you. We've lived together for quite some time now. It isn't about having sex at this point.
 
Imagine living like a married couple for years and then realizing "oh we can't do that anymore until we're legally married."
So basically that's almost what it becomes. Hope that makes sense. I understand what you are saying though.

In yesterday's sacrament meeting in our ward, the first speaker was a guy who was living with his girlfriend 11 years ago.  He was a convert to the church at 15 years old and then fell away.  He came back to church after already having a daughter with his girlfriend.  His girlfriend wanted to be baptized but they can't do it unless she gets married first.  So, they went to the bishop and had the marriage ceremony performed right there at the bishop's office.  She was then interviewed for baptism and got baptized a few days after that.  They got sealed at the temple a year later.  Interestingly, this guy - who has been a very active guy in the church who has had callings in the young men presidency among others, sport sleeve tattoos on both arms and rides his Harley... 
 

One of the nasty things about sin, is that it tends to reinforce itself.  The longer we persist in it, the harder it is to get out.  
It sounds like you’ll be married relatively soon either way, so superficially, the situation will eventually have resolved itself.  At that time you’ll become an active LDS family that either actually has paid the price for and has a testimony of the Law of Chastity and can claim the blessings thereof, or . . . a family that hasn’t. 

.

Yes and she's totally is interested. She's Zulu and from South Africa and the appeal to ancestry was interesting to her.
 
Yes legal marriage is what we want. And then definitely temple.
 
I've been away a long time

Hi and welcome Danno, glad you're here!
First, you're hardly the first person in this situation - others have been here too.  You say you're getting legally married? As you can guess, we figure that's a big thing, so congratulations!   Our church is big on taking you where you're at, and helping you move up a level.  So moving from a "state of sin" to a legally binding, committed marriage, is surely a move in the right direction. 
What does your girlfriend think of the church?  Does she know about your reading the BoM?