I am getting married in Atlanta, Georgia in Sept. 2005.  My fiance and
I want to have a mutual friend marry us.  Our friend has gone online
and been ordained by the Universal Life Chruch (www.ulc.org) which was
quick and easy.  On their website they state that marriages preformed
by ULC ordained ministers are legal in Georgia.  I'm worried however
that I'm going to find out after we've been married that the marriage
isn't legal.  There seems to be states where the legality of these
marriages has been challenged, such as Tennesee and North Carolina to
name two, even though the ULC website says marriages in NC are legal
(I forget what it says about Tenn.).
Please see these websites:
http://www.darkfiber.com/ulc-tn/97TN.html
http://www.goddessmoon.org/Clergy/north_carolina's_position_on_ulc_ordinations.shtml

Alos, I have tried to contact the Atlanta City Clerk to see if they
can answer this question for me, but 1. I'm not sure if they are even
the right dept. to ask, and 2.  I can't ever seem to get ahold of
them.

What I want is a guarentee that my Sept. 2005 marriage will be legal
if prefromed by a person who only has been ordained by the ULC.  And
ULC marriages are not legal in the state of GA, then how can my friend
be ordained to legally marry us?
Thank you!!!

Hello Jessica14203-ga

Congrats on the upcoming marriage. According to the US Marriage Laws site...

"Officiant: Any minister who is authorized by his or her church may
perform marriages. Ministers must complete a certificate of marriage
and return it to the ordinary within 30 days after the marriage."

Therefore, based off this, and the code mentioned in the comments...

Section 19-3-30 of the Georgia Code 
"The license shall be directed to any judge, including judges of
state and federal courts of record in this state, city recorder,
magistrate, minister, or other person of any religious society or sect
authorized by the rules of such society to perform the marriage
ceremony. Therefore, sounds like your friend who is ULC Ordained
should be fine. I would recommend asking also when you go to get your
marriage license.
(http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/GaCode/Title19.pdf)

19-3-42 states:
?A marriage which is valid in other respects and supposed by the
parties to be valid shall not be affected by want of authority in the
minister, judge, city recorder, magistrate, or other person to
solemnize the same??

This to me sounds like if you believe the marriage is legal, and it is
legal in the licensing respects, etc, that because of the ?minister?
it can not be deemed illegal and invalid.

For a LOT more information on Marriage requirements and laws in
Georgia, please go to
http://usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/georgia/index.shtml

I found this information with a Google Search:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Universal%20life%20church%20marriages%20in%20georgia&btnG=Google+Search

If this answer requires further explanation, please request
clarification before rating it, and I'll be happy to look into this
further.
Nenna-GA
Google Answers Researcher

Thanks!

Section 19-3-30 of the Georgia Code states, in relevant part: 
(c) The license shall be directed to any judge, including judges of
state and federal courts
of record in this state, city recorder, magistrate, minister, or other
person of any religious
society or sect authorized by the rules of such society to perform the
marriage ceremony;
such license shall authorize the marriage of the persons therein named
and require the
judge, city recorder, magistrate, minister, or other authorized person
to return the license
to the judge of the probate court with the certificate thereon as to
the fact and date of
marriage within 30 days after the date of the marriage. The license
with the return thereon
shall be recorded by the judge in a book kept by such judge for that purpose.

(http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/GaCode/Title19.pdf)

Further 19-3-42 states:
A marriage which is valid in other respects and supposed by the
parties to be valid shall not
be affected by want of authority in the minister, judge, city
recorder, magistrate, or other
person to solemnize the same; nor shall such objection be heard from
one party who has
fraudulently induced the other to believe that the marriage was legal.

I could not find, in my brief examination of the CODE itself, any
other definition of who is authorized to conduct a ceremony. The first
section merely says a person "authorized by the rules of such society
to perform the marriage ceremony." The second section notes that if
the person solmnizing the ceremony does not have authority to do so,
the marriage is still valid so long as it's valid in the "other
respects" (such as following the license requirements) and the parties
to the marriage suppose the marriage to be valid.

This, of course, is not legal advice; it's just a bit of quick
research. I did not do any case law research to see how these statutes
may have been interpreted by the courts.

Thanks to whomever posted this comment.  This is my first time using
Google Answers so I'm not exactly sure how this works.  Are you a
researcher for google?      I'm asking b/c it still says there is no
"answer" to this question.  Am I supposed to decide when it has been
answered completely, and if so, what do I do then?
As for your comment, it does seem from the legal code that you quoted,
that the ULC life church ordaination should be fine for my friend. 
Then again, it would also be helpful to see if anyone has ever
challenged ULC marriages in the state of GA, and what courts have had
to say.
Thanks,
Jessica

Jessica,

Kylek is not a Google Answers Researcher. Helpful free comments are
often posted by site users; only an official Google Answers Researcher
may post an Answer and receive compensation. It's simple to tell who's
a Google Answers Researcher: just look at the way the username is
displayed. Only Google Answers Researchers' usernames are highlighted
in blue and "clickable." Other usernames are standard bold text.

~pinkfreud, Google Answers Researcher

You're welcome, thanks for the nice rating!

Nenna-GA