NEWS / 3 Colorado counties to no longer accept pets as marriage certificate witnesses

El Paso County, Colorado, is following in the footsteps of Denver and Arapahoe Counties in prohibiting pets from printing their paws on marriage certificate as witnesses of the matrimony. The move was confirmed by El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker.

Most Colorado counties will continue to allow pet paw prints on the marriage certificate witness lines for self-solemnizing couples—individuals who decide to marry themselves without an officiant.

“It was a very hard decision to make because I am a pet lover,” Schleiker was quoted by KOAA News 5 Southern Colorado as stating. He argued that the paw print was causing damage to the county’s scanners and copiers.

“We're almost at a point we have to start replacing the equipment because of the residue from these very large, large paw prints that are coming through,” the pet loving county clerk stated. Schleiker also noted that the problem was compounded by the high volume of orders, with El Paso County, the location of Colorado Springs, being the largest county in the State of Colorado by population.

The smudged paw prints could cause issued further down the line, if the couples need certified copies of their marriage certificates for the purposes of getting an apostille or going through probate if one of the spouses dies.

That being said, Schleiker underscored that all marriage certificates with paw prints issued before the change in the regulations will remain valid.

Marriage records in Colorado are mostly stored at the county level, but the State is looking into ways to make marriage certificate and marriage record regulations more uniform.