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Are all marriage records available at libraries or do you need to contact vital records?

I've been looking for my grandparents marrage record for years now online but to no avail. I check at our main library but nothing. I was told that the records they had were the same as vital records office, but are they. Can anyone recommend a free place to look. They should have been married in Florida around 1949-1951 but they move around a litle and no one alive remembers when or where it was. I value any info into this. Can I use their SSN's because those were easy to find?!?!

Public Comments

1. Whether marriage and other records will be available at public libraries varies from place to place. I certainly wouldn't expect to find my ancestors' records in public libraries: I would always go to Vital Records offices. Libraries are not normal repositories of birth, marriage, and death records except as these might have appeared in local newspapers, which, in turn, were stored on microfiche in libraries. Today, libraries may be using different methods to store old newspapers and their birth notices and wedding announcements, plus obituaries (death notices). But libraries should not be your first port of call. Vital Records Offices are best, and in this case, you are looking for a marriage license.
2. I don't think an SSN will help you find marriage records. Each state in the U.S. has its own laws regarding vital records. Marriage records were kept long before birth and death records were. Ancestry.Com has Florida marriage records from 1927 to 2001. It isn't free but many public libaries have a subscription to it that patrons can use for free. Another thing if you would give us their names then someone who sees your question down the line and has a subscription to Ancestry.Com can look it up. I have a subscription to it if you wish to contact me through my Avatar.
3. Once you write to Shirley T through her avatar and get your grandparents' date and place, give her best answer and go back to the library. If there is an article about the wedding in the society page of the old newspaper on microfilm, you will have a gold mine. Wade through the fluff about the organdy bodice and decorations of snapdragons until you get to where the groom works, and his brother Edward being best man. Many of them mention the bride and groom's parents, and their mothers' maiden names. Wedding articles come out a day or two (sometimes as many as 7 days) after the wedding.