To read more of Khanika Harper as told to Ivy Scott's article, please click here, Prison Wedding Rules: No Cake, No Lace, But Lots of Love | The Marshall Project.

Image: Anna Sorokina for The Marshall Project

Khanika Harper is a former psychiatric nurse who founded Justice For All, a St. Louis-based organization that fights for criminal justice reform and provides free or low-cost support services to the families of people in Missouri state prisons. Through this work, she met the partners of incarcerated men who were looking to get married but couldn’t find an officiant willing to perform the ceremony inside a prison. So, in 2023, she completed online training with American Marriage Ministries and was ordained as a nondenominational minister. Harper has since married more than a dozen couples inside the state’s correctional facilities. Guiding them through their relationship highs and lows, she’s gained wisdom on how people navigate love in prison and adapt to the challenges they face in the system.

In this field, I see so many things that are dark. I need — not want — I need to do something to brighten the room. I also love love. It’s very fulfilling to be someone who helps facilitate these ceremonies and gives those who might not have access to being married the opportunity.

The Missouri Department of Corrections has ceremonies every March and September, so those months are wedding season at the DOC. Each season, my organization gets 25 or 30 applications total from different facilities.

I think it’s important to have a sense of openness, and so we’ll officiate between any two people, but so far, all the requests have been from girlfriends looking to get married to their boyfriend or fiancé inside. I haven’t yet had a request for a wedding inside a women’s prison, but I look forward to doing one someday.