A guy i know raised a vaild point.
he said that to be married in the eyes of God is to make a promise in front of him that you and your partner agree to love and be there for each other for ever. Therefore both of you praying together and making this promise to each other is marrige in the eyes of the Lord.
Is this true? does this mean we are married now?
No, God would see that as being a hallow marriage and a poor excuse to have sex with no commiment. There is no temporal authroity backing up your marriage. Even in Ancient Israel there was some temporal (earthly) authority recognizing who was married. Two people could not just get together and say "we're married now" It was required that 3rd parties play at witness to this. It always has been that way.
Some of God's work on earth is carried out by his body, the church on earth. So for God to see you as married he would want you to be married in front of other believers in the church.
On top of that God would want you to seek out the blessing and backing of the earthly authority. So that would mean that you need to get a marriage license. When you are married and its recognized by both the church and the earth, it has "teeth". That means one of you can't just re-nig on it and run away that easily. While you can obviously get divorced it takes work to do through the courts plus the church may choose to discipline you.
If you just make a promise to eachother and to God, there is nothing backing that up. No one on this earth, not the government, not your family, not the church recognizes that as a marriage. So I highly doubt that God would recognize it as a marriage either.
Marriage is a committment, and if you are truely committed you will get a marriage license and make that committment public. Other wise your commitment to eachother is just as hallow and meaningless as your "marriage".
BTW I don't want to be too mean to you because you arn't the only person who's come up with that one. But use your head for a second. Do you think God established the church for nothing? Do you think God with something that is as important to him as marriage be all cool with a hallow committment that just involves us saying those things in private? Where the committment is broken as easy as saying "I changed my mind." Search yourself and ask WHY you would want to do it in private? Is it just cause you can't wait to hop into bed with them? (And I'm not ripping on you, I'm engaged and I totally understand that feeling.) Is it because of the cost? Because a wedding in a church and a marriage license doesn't cost that much, the reception is what costs . . . and NOTHING says you have to have a reception. (God isn't going to be upset if you get a marriage license, and have a pastor marry you in a small cerimony with just your families with no reception.)
Do the right thing, do it in public, with a pastor, and a marriage license. Then you are universally recognized as married, there is no denying that. But a private committment will mean only you will see you as married. Even if you both tell everyone about the private committment they arn't going to see you as married, especially the church and the law.
I imagine that you are quite young and just want to be married. Perhaps you are under the legal age? In any regard, not following through with marriage in the traditional sense is not fair to you, your partner or God. If you are old enough, marry. If you aren't hang in there. I assure you it is worth the wait! 
