Legal matters concerning marriage may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Indeed, the title possibly did not grab your attention. But you can’t marry without certain requirements being satisfied, so please read on.
Exciting news
There is every possibility that, in the course of 2021 or 2022, the law will change. If so, independent civil celebrants will be permitted to train and conduct legal ceremonies. Then you can have the ceremony of your choice and it will be legally binding.
Obviously, churches and register offices will not stop acting as marriage venue possibilities.
Incidentally, as far as legal registration is concerned, this blog only covers births, deaths and weddings. (You don’t need any paperwork to celebrate a Vow Renewal or a handfasting.)
The current situation
Births are usually registered at a hospital. For deaths, the doctor (either at home or, again, at the hospital) normally provides the death certificate, which you take to the local Register Office.
Until such time as the legislation changes, here is what you have to do at the moment for a legal wedding. It’s a little more complex.
Religious weddings
If the wedding is conducted in an Anglican church or synagogue, or according to the Quaker service, then there is normally a member of the institution present who is a registrar. They will ensure the legalities are carried out.
If you’re having a marriage anywhere else, things are different and a little more complicated!
Register Office
You need to register your intention to marry at least 28 days in advance. Then you go to the Register Office (by appointment) with two witnesses, and can get legally married. The ceremony will be totally secular and fairly standardised (so next-to-nothing to differentiate one service from the next).
The Registrars used to be able to come to you. Legislation is going to change for this too, but for now, provided the wedding venue has four solid walls and a roof (basically), the registrars could conduct the wedding for you at your venue. (This would cost several hundred pounds more than attending the Register Office.)
However, due to the Coronavirus situation, registrars are not coming out to venues at all for the foreseeable future.
Another alternative
You can have a civil celebrant-led ceremony. This lets you choose a religious (or partially-religious) or a secular ceremony. The big thing – setting this option out from the other two – is that you can have the ceremony of your dreams. Why? Because the celebrant will work with you in advance to respect and enable your vision. It’s all about personalising, rather than following a standard rubric. That means your ceremony will be unique, and can reflect your personalities and beliefs.
The downside is that the ceremony has no legal validity. So you still have to attend the Registrar-led ceremony beforehand too.
Obviously, another downside – with all these – is social distancing, and the need to severely limit your guest list.
Either way, once you’re legally married, you can have your dream ceremony, conducted by the celebrant, afterwards. To all intents and purposes, that will be your real wedding!
Hopefully, not so painful, was it? But if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.
It’s mid-November. Christmas adverts on TV are already the norm. It will soon be time for wall-to-wall carols on the radio. The New Year will be upon us sooner than we realise.
A year ago, nobody could have foreseen the direction the new year would take. Without exception, everybody has been affected, to a lesser or greater extent. Job losses, health issues – even, deaths – isolation … the list goes on.
So, what will the future hold? Can we look forward to the next month or two? Dare we be positive about 2021?
Of course, I have no crystal ball. The threatened ‘spike’ may materialise. The virus may, however, have done its worst. Whether improved testing and the emergence of a vaccine will actually make a difference remains to be seen. We simply cannot tell.
All we can do is to let life go on, as best we can.
That means making plans again.
If you have forthcoming happy events, do consider marking them. It’s important to us as humans to celebrate. It might be a wedding, or an anniversary (especially, one ending in a -5 or -0). It might be a naming or a handfasting. It could certainly be a vow renewal. Just possibly, a promotion at work. But don’t ignore it.
Of course, whether you hold a micro-event or something larger depends on the date of your ceremony and what the current regulations will be.
So it may be a gamble. Thus it may be easiest to arrange something that can be adapted at fairly short notice. That probably entails liaising with your venue (if you’re booking one at all) and/or suppliers, and checking how flexible they are.
I believe that things will ease up in 2021 (may my words not come back to haunt me!). As social animals, we do need to break the isolation at some point. Hopefully, this can be done in a controlled way, and a ceremony may be exactly what the doctor (!) ordered.
If you are thinking of organising something a bit special, then please have a chat with me.
With so much confusion about weddings at the moment, it may offer some consolation to you to know that you are not alone.
The figures from a Hitched survey for the last two months make interesting reading. They interviewed a range of couples who had booked their wedding for any time between September and December 2019.
Of these, 71% were now rescheduling. 34% of these were moving the date to the first half of 2021, and 56% to the second.
20% chose to keep to their original wedding date. Only 5% cancelled altogether.
So a lot of people are in a similar position – that may only console you a bit, but don’t go beating yourself up! There’s not much anybody can do about the situation and you’re in good company.
Let’s just hope that the situation resolves itself favourably soon, and that we can get on with enjoying our celebrations as they should be!
Where you marry is not something to take for granted. If atmosphere is important to you, you’re going to select your venue with care. That applies to the venue of your wedding service and to the reception venue (if they are different).
When I married my good lady back in the sands of time, we attended the local register office, which was far from attractive! Knowing that, we had booked alternative venues for the other parts of the occasion. Those choices mattered to us.
The obvious choices
If you go down the full religious route, you’ll use your religious building. It’s simple enough.
It’s almost as simple if you’re having a Register Office wedding. You make an appointment to attend the office, with two witnesses. A quarter of an hour later, it’s all over. (Incidentally, pre-COVID, Registrars would come out to some venues – though at quite a price!)
Another choice
You don’t have to be bound by those two alternatives. You can opt for the civil celebrant route, and then it’s a different ball-game.
This doesn’t negate the Registrars. You still have to get legally married first. That means making an appointment before the ceremony (as above).
The difference is that now you can also have your personalised ceremony – in the venue of your dreams.
And that means almost anywhere! It could be in your back garden or (with permission, of course) in a field next to a canal, up the Shard, at Stonehenge, by the seaside, in the Savoy Hotel, in a hot-air balloon – well, you get the picture! Do bear in mind dear old social distancing!
Advice
If you’re arranging the ceremony yourself, you’ll need a celebrant, and probably suppliers such as florists, photographers, make-up artists, caterers, etc.
You may want to hire a wedding planner. For the extra cost, you get peace of mind. Depending on the package you agree, every detail can be organised and overseen for you.
Regardless, you need to get permission/pay for the venue you may be using.
All this should be arranged well in advance – generally, at least a year ahead, as some of the suppliers get booked up quite early. Maybe even earlier in the new world we’re living in.
With all suppliers, try and get first-hand reports from people who have used them. This may be word-of-mouth or website reviews, but speaking to them directly is important. You can ask your questions and get a feel for the supplier’s attitude.
Practicalities
Remember good old health and safety – especially if you’re organising everything yourself. (No trailing wires; ensure there are sufficient toilets; check signposting, observe social distancing etc. etc.)
The bottom line is that you really can choose where (and how) to mark your big day. Of course, if you need any advice on the ceremony, just contact your friendly neighbourhood celebrant!
They say that your wedding is the happiest day of your life.
It marks a public declaration of love. New beginnings. You’re surrounded by the love and support of your family and friends. It’s your special ceremony. You have your special venue. And star-status for a day.
Sure, the build-up can be stressful, although it should also be exciting and fun. However, things have become less simple nowadays, need I point out!
It’s been calculated that over 100,000 weddings have been called off or cancelled since lockdown began in March. That has had a huge impact on wedding-related businesses. A number of these have closed down or are seriously considering their future. That is going to affect your choices, of course.
Having been one of the first sectors to be adversely impacted by COVID-19, the wedding sector is one of the last to re-open. Last Saturday is historically the busiest wedding day of the year – almost 4,500 nationally should have taken place then.
The impact on the industry is almost incalculable.
The only bit of good news is that hundreds of weddings have been rearranged – or will be – for 2021. That could bring a rush of work to the struggling companies – those that survive long enough to benefit.
Couples who are proceeding with their wedding this year are already having to compromise. Social distancing being one of the major issues. That may only get slightly better, as time goes on.
There is one other disadvantage for some couples who are deferring their wedding. You used to be able to buy cancellation cover. Few companies are now providing any wedding insurance cover – and none for Coronavirus-related claims. So couples have little protection and may even be unwilling to risk getting married at all.
Life does go on, but the rest of 2020 is looking quite gloomy for wedding sector businesses. As a celebrant, I am concentrating on hanging in there!
Although one consequence for couples is the possible limiting of supplier choice, there will still be plenty of good, functioning businesses that are available. As ever, you will have to do your homework, but it’s not all doom and gloom. With realistic expectations, you can still enjoy the build-up and have the happiest day of your life!
Feel free to have a chat with me about these matters.
