Approving a venue

I think you can have a humanist ceremony anywhere you like but they are not legally binding in England although they are in Scotland. As you don't say where you are I don't know if this means yours would be legal or not. Lots of people have had the legal ceremony at a registry office then had a humanist ceremony in their place of choice (in England) followed by a reception. I think there should be lots of information if you google it. I think you're right about getting a venue licensed it would have to be open to the public to marry there.

Yeah I'm sure you can't get one-off licenses.

I think you'll have to have the registry thing (we're doing that sneakily the day before) then have the thing at your folks' - that must be such a cool house!!

Hi, Sorry, forgot to mention that we are near Stockport, Manchester. I think I will look into the humanist thing, I have been to a couple of humanist funerals for family members and they were really nice, considering! We have a lovely village pub about a minutes walk from the house so was thinking of doing an unofficial ceremony at the house, sending everyone to the pub for drinks and nibbles whist we zip to registry office and have the house made ready for the reception then all head back up to the house :-) Thanks for the advice, will begin looking into it all now :-)

We're doing the register office with just our parents a few days before our blessing ceremony - means you can do it anywhere!