Short answer. Seven items, besides your declaration that you take each other as husband and wife: full name, sex and age of each party; citizenship, religion and habitual residence; the date and precise time of the celebration; and confirmations about the license, parental consent, parental advice, and any marriage settlement.

What the law says

The marriage certificate, in which the parties shall declare that they take each other as husband and wife, shall also state: (1) The full name, sex and age of each contracting party; (2) Their citizenship, religion and habitual residence; (3) The date and precise time of the celebration of the marriage

Family Code, Article 22 — Contents of the Marriage Certificate. Read the full provision →

The certificate proves the marriage; it is not the marriage

Article 22 describes a record, and it helps to be clear about what that record does. The formal requisites of marriage are listed in Article 3, and a certificate is not among them. What the certificate does is prove, in a form any office will accept, that the requisites were met — which is why the Code is specific about what it must contain. The parties' declaration that they take each other as husband and wife is written into the document itself, so the certificate carries both the fact of the ceremony and the words that made it a marriage.

Why the precise time is recorded

Item three requires the date and precise time of the celebration of the marriage, and the word precise is not decoration. The hour can decide real questions: whether a marriage in articulo mortis was celebrated before the ailing party died, which of two ceremonies on the same day came first, whether a marriage preceded or followed a death that opened an inheritance, and whether property acquired that day fell inside the marriage. These are rare situations, but when one arises the entry is usually the only evidence anybody has, and it cannot be reconstructed afterwards from memory.

The four compliance statements

Items four to seven are not facts about the couple but attestations about the process: that the proper marriage license was issued according to law, except in the marriages that need none; that parental consent was secured in appropriate cases; that the requirement of parental advice was complied with, again in appropriate cases; and that the parties have entered into a marriage settlement, if any, attaching a copy thereof. The last one matters years later. A prenuptial agreement that was never attached is not automatically void, but a couple who cannot produce it will be arguing about their property regime from a weak position.

Check your own copy while it is easy to fix

Get a certified copy of your marriage certificate and read every entry against the source document behind it — birth certificates for the names, ages and citizenship, the license number, the settlement if there is one. Misspellings, a wrong age, a wrong entry for civil status or a blank where the license details belong are far cheaper to address soon after the wedding than at the point where the certificate is needed for a visa, a claim, or the settlement of an estate. Bring the certificate and the supporting documents together when you ask anyone about it.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.