As well as being half of The Dignums’ photography duo, I also work part-time as a registrar. It’s a fascinating job, and I love it. I get to meet and help people at all stages of the wedding planning process, right from the first enquiries after getting engaged, to being part of the wedding ceremonies themselves.
For your civil wedding or civil partnership to be legal, you currently need to have a registrar present. Couples often say to me: “we haven’t done this before!” and can be unsure of what they need to do, and when. So I thought I’d devote a post on our blog to providing some information that might be helpful if you find yourself in the “newly engaged and slightly confused” category!
Before we get down to it, a quick disclaimer! This advice is provided in the hope that it’ll be useful, but it’s still down to you to check with your local registrars, legal officials, foreign officials, religious officiants, venue proprietors, and anyone else that you need to, regarding the legality of your wedding - I can’t take any responsibility myself. The precise nature of what you need to do may differ based on your location and circumstances. This advice is my own, and not that of the General Register Office or any of the Local Registration Services.
I’m going to stick to one of the commonest scenarios: couples marring in an Approved Premises in England or Wales. Approved Premises are venues that have a licence for legal marriages to take place there, where the ceremony will be performed by registrars, and you’ll receive your marriage certificate a few days after your ceremony. The process may be different if you’re planning to marry in a religious building, Scotland, or abroad, so if this is the case make sure you’ve done your homework and taken any advice you need to. Currently, ceremonies that take place in non-approved premises don’t have a legal standing, and are purely celebratory in nature. Quite often in these cases, the couples have “signed on the dotted line” and become legally married at a Register Office beforehand. More about that in a bit.
The early stages: choosing an Approved venue, and booking the registrars!
Hooray! You’ve got engaged (congratulations!), and are dipping your toes into the weird and wonderful waters of wedding planning for the first time. It’s easy to be overwhelmed, but you’ll be fine! Make lists, have a wedding planning notebook or folder, do one thing at a time, and don’t be averse to asking for help and advice! Maybe you haven’t done this before, but there’s a good chance you’re friends with someone who has.
One of the first things you’ll do is choose and book your venue. The advantage of going for one of the Approved Premises is that they will do a lot of the work for you, with packages that provide everything including the ceremony space, food and drink for you and your guests, and maybe even accommodation. You’ll also be legally married on that day, by the registrars. Of course, you’ll pay good money for all of this convenience.
There are also Approved Premises where just the ceremony is held, which tend to be more affordable. These include the Register Offices themselves, which usually have a special room for ceremonies. After they’re married there, couples and their guests will often travel somewhere they’ve arranged for celebrations afterwards, which doesn’t have to be on the Approved list. It could even be their own back gardens!
The websites for Register Offices usually have a list of all the licensed premises in their area, so that can be a useful place to start. Then the scouting begins, either in person or online. Unless you’re millionaires, budget is likely to be a big deciding factor. It’s worth bearing in mind that a venue’s price may vary with time of year, or the day of week of the booking, with Saturdays being the most popular. There are sometimes deals to be had: venues may offer a discount for their remaining unbooked dates in the coming months. So if you don’t mind doing your organising quickly, this can be a way to save money.
Soon enough, you’ll find a venue you’ve fallen in love with, and contacted the staff there to pick a date. At this point you will also need to contact the Register Office in the same district as your venue, to make sure they have registrars available to marry you on that date. Most venues won’t do this for you - it’s your responsibility. There may be a bit of back and forth depending on availability, and this is the point at which you’ll choose the time of day for your actual ceremony. You’ll need to check whether your venue prefers the ceremony to take place at a particular time, and that the registrars are available for that time, too.
From a photography point of view, the time of day for your ceremony can be important, particularly in the winter. If you book a 4:00pm ceremony in December, remember it’s going to be dark! This will of course affect the sort of pictures of your day that you end up with. If daylight time is short, you could consider having some tradition-busting “first look” photos just before your ceremony.
When you’ve settled on a date and time that everyone can do, you need to get venue and registrars booked. Don’t hang around, as dates get taken well in advance! There’ll be a deposit to pay to secure your venue, and possibly a booking fee for the registrars, too.
Remember: if you don’t mind the idea of getting legally married on one day, and having a non-legal celebratory ceremony shortly afterwards, there’s always the option to have a very simple and affordable “statutory” wedding at your Register Office.
Your celebratory ceremony could then take place later the same day, or even a completely different day, and be located anywhere, even a marquee in your own back garden, or a field! You may find that your local registrars offer a Celebrant service to perform this ceremony for you. Or, you may wish to contact an independent celebrant who will have lots of ideas for creating a really bespoke ceremony.
This idea for signing on the dotted line at the Register Office, then having a non-legal ceremony afterwards, is becoming increasingly popular. It’s therefore worth bearing in mind that most Register Offices limit the number of statutory ceremonies they offer (they don’t make a lot of money from them!), so they may have a waiting list. Book early!
The slightly later early stages: booking your other suppliers, and giving Notice at the Register Office
It’s a nice feeling when you’ve got a venue and registrars booked, but there’s still stuff to do! This is the time when you’ll start to plan for the other elements of your day. Your list may include things like suits/dresses, choosing brides-grooms-maids-men (delete as appropriate), hair and make-up, flowers, music, decorations, food and drink, treats and favours, cake, entertainment, and alpacas. Yes, wedding alpacas are a thing!
Chances are, since you’re on this website, photography is important to you as well.
Wedding suppliers, photographers included, tend to get booked up well in advance, so you don’t want to hang around at this point. But, before committing, it’s super-important to make sure you choose what’s right for you. Using photography as an example, there’s loads of different styles, personalities, and prices out there. Research what’s on offer, to make sure it fits well with what you’ve got in mind for your wedding. Your photographer is going to be there with you for a large part of your day, so you’ll want to make sure that you and your photographer, as well as the cameras, click!
NB: sometimes our very clever cameras don’t click! We can switch them into a “silent shooting” mode where they make no noise at all. This can be really helpful to ensure we’re not a distraction during important moments, and the registrars, celebrants, and religious officials love us for this.
Wedding fairs are a great way to get inspiration, chat to suppliers, and eat loads of free cake samples (yum), and settle on the priorities for your day, based on your budget. You may also realise, that if you’re that way inclined, there may be some things that you’re able to do yourself. It saves some of your hard-earned cash, and can add a lovely personal touch to your day. Phil and I, for instance, sewed our own bunting, and chose simple bunches of daffodils from the supermarket for our flowers.
Then, no earlier than a year before your wedding date you’ll need to do your Notices at the Register Office local to where you live. Giving notice is a legal requirement for all Approved Premises and Register Office ceremonies, and most non-Church of England religious ceremonies. There are a few exceptions in less usual circumstances, but your local Register Office will be able to advise you if this is the case.
Now, this is important: I advise booking your appointment to go and give Notice at your local Register Office
around six months before your ceremony date.
Why?
Firstly, there is a waiting period of 28 days (let’s call it a month) that must elapse between giving Notice and you being able to get married. This is to give time for members of the public to legally object to upcoming marriages! Don’t worry, this doesn't happen often. During the busy wedding season there may be a wait of several weeks to get a Notice appointment. So if you left it too late to book your Notice, you wouldn’t be able to have a legal marriage on your wedding date. Booking six months before will therefore give you plenty of time, and also stop any panics if you suddenly need to renew or order copies of any of the documents you’ll need. (I'll explain about documents for Notices in a moment.)
Secondly, giving Notice about six months before your ceremony date will give you some leeway should you have to postpone your ceremony date. This used to be unheard of, but then that pandemic came along. A Marriage Notice remains valid for one year from the date it is given. So if you booked an appointment too early, then had to postpone your ceremony to a date more than a year after your Notice, you would have to go through the full process again, including paying the fee and the month’s waiting period.
For your Marriage Notice you’ll need to book an appointment, and both go along to your local Register Office in person, with documents that prove your identity, nationality, home address, and that you’re free to marry each other. Your Register Office staff will walk you through what you need to bring when you book your appointment, so listen carefully! That Cycling Proficiency Certificate from when you were at school is not going to cut it in this case! All documents must be originals: they can’t accept photocopies or screenshots.
Usually, if you have a valid (in date) UK passport, plus a valid photo-card driving licence that shows your current address, you’ll be home and dry. If you’ve been married before, you’ll need to show proof that that previous marriage has ended - most commonly that means a decree absolute (not the decree nisi), for a divorce, or the death certificate if your previous spouse passed away. If any divorce documents are not from a British court you will need to bring the original plus a certified translation if it’s not in English, and there will be an additional fee to pay.
If you’ve ever changed your name, you’ll need to show evidence of that, for instance a change of name deed. You may also be asked to bring your full (A4-sized) birth certificate, and further proof of address: a bank statement less than one month old, or a utility bill less than three months old, or your most recent Council Tax bill. If you don’t have a valid passport, there will be a few more hoops to jump through to establish your nationality. If you were born before 1983, then your full birth certificate will be fine. However, if you were born on or after 1/1/1983, you’ll need to show your full birth certificate, PLUS your mum’s full birth certificate, as you get your nationality from your mum! If you’re not British or Irish you will also need to show evidence of your immigration status, for instance by providing your EU Settled Status share code, or showing your valid Leave To Remain card. You may also need to bring a passport-sized photo each and pay an additional fee.
The main advice to give here is to pay careful attention to what the Register Office staff or website asks you to bring, when you book your appointment.
At the appointment itself, you’ll show your documents, pay the basic fee (currently £35 each, so a total of £70), and you’ll be asked questions about yourself, and your partner. You may be seen together, or separately. Don’t panic about those questions: it’s just the basics, and there’s no soundproof booth with headphones. At least, there isn’t one at MY Register Office! Some of the details from your notice-giving will then be placed on display at your local Register Office for (usually) 28 days. It’s a legal requirement that in this small way it’s published to the general public that you wish to marry your partner, and would allow a member of the public to raise a legal objection if they wished. This 28 days must elapse before you are allowed to get married, which as I’ve said is the reason not to leave it too late with regard to booking to give your Notices.
Another thing to quickly mention is that your Notices, once given, are locked to the ceremony venue that you’ve stated. So, if for any reason you changed your mind about where you’re getting married, you would have to go through the Notice process (including paying the fee, and the 28 day waiting period) again.
If you’re planning to marry in an Approved Premises or Register Office, the registrars in the corresponding district will see pretty much straight away that you’ve done your Notices - the computers are all linked. So while you give your Notices in the district in which you live, it’s the registrars in the district where your legal ceremony is going to take place (if different) that you’ll be dealing with after that. They usually get in touch to confirm they’ve received your Notices, and the date and time of the ceremony. There may be options to personalise your ceremony, and of course there will be a fee, usually payable no later than one month before your big day.
On your wedding day!
Before you know it, your wedding day will be upon you! Its a cliche, but it really does seem to come round quickly. Registrars tend to come in pairs at weddings: there’s the one who will do the talking, and actually conduct your ceremony, and a quieter one, who will do the paperwork. They will arrive at your venue approximately 40 minutes before the ceremony is due to start. First of all, they see you and your partner, usually separately (so you don’t see each other beforehand). They will double-check all the details you gave when you did your Notices, to make sure everything is correct and up to date. You don’t usually need to bring any documents with you on the day, though: the process is just done verbally, unless anything major has changed. I was once registering at a wedding where one of the parties had completely changed their name since they’d given Notice! Fortunately they’d had the foresight to bring along their change of name deed, which was certainly helpful in that case.
During this pre-ceremony interview you’ll also be walked through everything that’s about to happen. The most important thing I say to my couples, though, is not to worry about remembering a single word of it! Just go with the flow. It’s actually really simple and obvious what’s going on throughout the ceremony: you’ll be led through all of it, and all the speaking is simple. You’ll either be responding to simple questions, or just repeating the words nice and slowly, a few at a time. It’s easy, I promise!
Afterwards, you and your partner will sign an important but unassuming-looking document called the Marriage Schedule, and your two nominated Witnesses will sign too. You have to bring your two witnesses along - the registration staff can’t be witnesses themselves. Witnesses can be anyone, friends, family, even strangers; as long as they are adults who understand what’s going on, and aren’t being distracted by taking pictures or looking after children, for example. It’s normally also a requirement that they’re near the front of the room, so that they can hear the words being said.
Once everyone’s signed, there may be the chance for some posed photos, if you want them. Your registrars will then congratulate you, before slipping away: possibly even to another wedding! On busy days they could have several weddings to attend, so they may well have mentioned to you beforehand the importance of your own ceremony starting on time.
If your wedding has taken place in the presence of a registrar, one copy of your marriage certificate will probably be posted to you a few days afterwards, as part of the fee you paid them will be for that. If your wedding takes place at a religious building, firstly that Document you and your witnesses signed has to be delivered to the local Register Office so your marriage can be registered. In this case you won’t automatically be posted a certificate. You will need to apply to that Register Office yourselves. The basic fee for a certificates is currently £11 each. Regardless of where your marriage takes place, that’s how you get additional copies of your certificates if you want them, by applying to the Register Office of the district in which the marriage took place, or to the central General Register Office. Beware of official-looking third-party websites that offer to do this for you: they charge a big fat fee and then just apply to the Register Office on your behalf. Always apply directly yourself.
I often get asked about new surnames after marriage. Are they on the marriage certificate? The answer is no: your names on your marriage certificate are the names in which you contract your marriage; essentially the names you had the day before your ceremony. However, it’s the certificate that proves that the legal event has taken place, and afterwards you can use it as proof for any name changes. It’s up to you what you do. There’s no legal obligation for anyone to change name at all after marriage. Either of the couple can take the other’s name, or double-barrel. Anything more exotic, like a portmanteau where you take bits of each others’ names to make a new one, or choosing a completely different name might mean also completing a change of name deed. Seek legal advice if you’re going to do something funky like that.
Some future changes
The UK Government is currently considering changing marriage law to allow couples to have their legal ceremony anywhere. This means that legal weddings won’t be restricted to Approved Premises any more - this is the way it’s done in Scotland, by the way. It could be an interesting time for the registrars, who may find themselves trekking up the local hills or mountains to perform some picturesque weddings, but I’ll certainly be up for it - within reason! However, don’t hold your breath with this one, as these changes to the law will have to go through Parliament first, which could take a very long time.
So - this is officially the longest written blog post on our site! I hope you’re still awake, and at least some of this information has been interesting and useful. Remember, though, to check with everyone you need to, regarding your own personal circumstances.
Or, just take me out for a pint, and then you can pick my brains further!
Cheers!
🍻Toby
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