How to sort out the legal part of your celebrant led wedding.
So… you’re busy planning your amazing celebrant led ceremony and you’ve just found out they’re not bloody legal! Don’t panic, this blog will explain the process of sorting out the legals and a few different options that are available!
Are celebrant led ceremonies legal?
At the moment celebrant-led ceremonies are not yet legally recognised in England and Wales. Therefore, if you wish your marriage or civil partnership to be legally recognised you’ll need to do the paperwork separately. Change is coming….Humanists UK and many of the independent celebrant professional bodies are lobbying parliament and working on the wedding reform bill, but at the moment celebrant-led ceremonies are not legally recognised in England or Wales.
Don’t panic!
All this means is that if you want to be recognised as married or civil partners by law you need to get the legal documents sorted with either your local council or a religious leader.
Hand on heart I promise you will remember your celebrant ceremony for the rest of your life.
This will be your Real Ceremony. And the one you will commemorate each year on your anniversary.
(if you’re good at remembering those kinds of things!)
So…what do we need to do to sort out the legals?
Giving notice
This is the bit where you rock up to the registrar office with your ID and prove that you do actually know each other (you have to give each others date of birth, and if you’re anything like me you’ll have a panic that you don’t actually know your partner’s date of birth…when of course you do!). Once you’ve done this you have 12 months to get the marriage or civil partnership done. Most councils use online booking services. They can be baffling - usually they have a helpline or e-mail address if you get stuck.
The legal bit….AKA the boring bit.
2. Choose how you want to sort out your legals….here are the options!
The simple statutory ceremony.
Every council should offer a basic ‘statutory ceremony’ at a low cost for you plus two witnesses.
Sometimes they can be a bit funny about it - you have the right to have this type of ceremony to legally register your marriage or civil partnership. If your local council doesn’t you can do this with a different council who does.
Some councils really advertise and push their ceremonies that cost from £200 - 800 at the different venues available.
BUT it’s important to know you do not have to pay this much. The ‘statutory ceremony’ is the nuts and bolts ceremony, you pay the cost of giving notice (£75 pp in Liverpool), then the cost of this basic ceremony (£57 in Liverpool). It takes about 15mins.
Some councils are more open about this than others - Liverpool is very transparent and I can recommend them if you’re looking for somewhere to get this bit done.
It’s also important to know that you do not have to exchange rings, or embellish this ceremony at all. Most couples who choose a celebrant led wedding see this legal bit as the paperwork, the contract. Much like registering a birth or death - it is the registering of your marriage or civil partnership.
Most couples choose to do this before their proper ceremony (celebrant led one!) however it’s also important to know you do not have to do this bit if you don’t want to have your joining legally recognised. And you can do it after your celebrant ceremony if you want to.
Something more fancy
Of course, you can choose to make more of a ‘do’ out of this legal part. Or you may want to bring along more than two witnesses - in which case the basic option wouldn’t work for you. Some couples want to bring along the whole family, get dressed up and make an occasion of it.
Doing it on the same day
Some couples have asked me about having their legal bit done on the same day as their celebrant ceremony. However - in the end none have gone for it. I’m including it here because it is an option!
By arranging both on the same day you would be making the ceremony a lot more pricey. The council charges considerably more for the registrars to attend a venue rather than at their base. Some registrars will refuse to come along to the venue if you’re having a celebrant ceremony - however this isn’t legally correct. You can push for this if you really want, and your celebrant can help with liaising with the registrars.
One thing that can work more smoothly is to go to the registrar office in the morning before your celebrant ceremony. You can book your 2+2 ceremony in the morning at the registry office, get the legals done there and then head off to your celebrant ceremony.
Tom & Steph chose to have their civil partnership a few days before the ceremony. They had wanted to do the legals on the same day, but the lovely folks at Liverpool Council recognised that this part wasn’t that meaningful for them and suggested they save some cash and do it in one of the 2+2 slots on another day.
So there you have it!
Because I don’t get involved with the legal side of things I can’t say I know everything, but if you’ve got questions please ask away!
Hi! I’m Emily!
I’m a wicked wedding and life cycle celebrant! I bloody love writing and leading fun filled wedding ceremonies with a sprinkle of sentimentality.
