Since 2020, Utah County has been a virtual wedding destination after it launched its online marriage portal during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing couples to get hitched remotely.

On Thursday, legislation creating statewide guidelines and restrictions on virtual weddings passed through a Senate committee.

Senate Bill 81 is being sponsored by state Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, and requires a wedding officiant to be physically present in Utah for a marriage to occur.

It also requires verification of the age, name and identity of the parties being wed, prohibits the power of attorney in securing a marriage license and requires couples to declare they are entering the marriage willingly, all of which are currently part of Utah County’s policy.

When the senator first introduced legislation, it would have required at least one of the parties being married to physically be in Utah. The bill was later substituted by Weiler, with the updated language allowing Utah County and other counties to continue with virtual ceremonies.

Weiler, who is an attorney, said he decided to run the bill because he was hired to handle a case of an alleged plural marriage that occurred online through Utah County with a couple in the Middle East.

“I’m fine with Utah being the Las Vegas of virtual weddings,” he said during the committee. “I don’t want Utah to be the Las Vegas of child or plural marriages virtually.”

By adding “guardrails,” Weiler said he hopes that will deter any abuse of the system. Much of what was in the bill, such as the ID verification, is already policy for Utah County but will set those regulations in state code for other Utah counties to follow if they perform virtual weddings.

According to Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson, who spoke to the committee in support of the bill, the county already has systems in place to verify the identity of people being married. Recently, Davidson said the county added additional protections by contracting with a third party to verify people’s identity when performing marriages.

He said the county already had a policy against using the power of attorney to secure a marriage license on behalf of someone for a virtual wedding, another component of Weiler’s bill.

Davidson, who was elected county clerk in 2022, originally had campaigned on removing the online marriage portal but said once he heard the stories of couples who had used it and why it was implemented, he became more supportive.

After Utah County created the online wedding process in April 2020, it quickly took off, allowing quarantined couples to still have ceremonies without leaving their homes, even if they weren’t in the same location.

But it also began being utilized internationally, often by couples who legally couldn’t get married within their home countries due to marriage laws.

In 2022, The Washington Post reported same-sex couples in China — where same-sex marriage isn’t recognized — were getting married through Utah County.

And, in 2023, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the country must recognize remote civil unions performed through Utah County. According to The Times of Israel, as of March 2023, 1,200 Israeli couples had been married through the online portal.

While there’s been attention on how international couples utilize the system, Burt Harvey, county tax administrator who was over the county’s marriage and passport office at the time, said about half of the couples who use it are located in Utah and a large majority are within the United States.

According to the Utah County website, for a marriage to be officiated virtually, a couple must apply for a marriage license online and use their phone to scan a government ID and their face.

Now that the bill has passed through committee, it will be sent to the Senate for consideration.

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