During meiosis, the paired homologous chromosomes are tightly held together by the synaptonemal complex (SC). This complex consists of two parallel axial/lateral elements (AEs/LEs) and one central element (CE). Here, we observed that PAIR3 localized to the chromosome core during prophase I and associated with both unsynapsed AEs and synapsed LEs. Analyses of the severe pair3 mutant demonstrated that PAIR3 was essential for bouquet formation, homologous pairing and normal recombination, as well as SC assembly. In addition, we showed that although PAIR3 was not required for the initial recruitment of PAIR2, it was required for the proper association of PAIR2 with chromosomes. Dual immunostaining revealed that PAIR3 highly co-localized with REC8. Moreover, studies using a rec8 mutant indicated that PAIR3 localized to chromosomes in a REC8-dependent manner.