Booking a Registrar

Hi,

We are getting married at the reg office and their dates decided the date of our wedding. Best to get in there quick before your date gets booked up. The register will come to you for the wedding but you may need an appointment to discuss things. Not sure on that bit as we're not doing it that way. Phone them asap x

To be honest my venue booked mine for me, but call your local offices and see what dates they have available in your local offices or for them to come to you. I dont think it's too difficult and then I had to pay a confirmation fee of £45 to secure the date x

It was easy for us as the venue sorted it all out for us, and the registry office contacted us. All you have to do is contact them and find a date and as someone else said, pay a booking fee of £45 x

Hmmm, reading some of the replies above I am starting to panic a bit. Our venue has said we have plenty of time to book a registrar as our wedding is still 18 months away, but they didn't advise us to book the registrar first. However, they said we will be allocated a Wedding Coordinator who will make sure we have sorted out all details including registrar.

I will email Leeds Registry Offcie just to enquire. I panicked at the thought of them saying they have no one available on the date of our wedding (which is already booked with the venue and deposit paid).

I guess it seems to depend on area you are getting married in and the date you have in mind...

Your venue may have its own registrars who only do weddings there, so they know there is always one available. I think that's how my venue works and it's why we didn't have to do anything. I would contact the venue and registry office though, just to put your mind at ease x

Guess you are right but I'd rather know... ? A place like Harewood House I would think they do, however they said that, surprisingly, they don't do THAT many weddings!

Because you can't actually book a registrar more than 12 months in advance we gave the local office a call and provisionally booked the date, they'll hold it for us until the end of november this year then if we haven't been to see them and given them some money it goes back to being available.

Oh absolutely, I worry about everything so I would definitely contact them.

I'm surprised at that, though, I've just googled it and it's absolutely stunning! Hope you get it sorted x

I just can't believe that most registrars charge in excess of 250 quid to attend your venue and marry you there.

We have decided the 45 pound odd fee to marry at the office is much better value lol

I think each county is different. We decided on our venue 15 months before the wedding date & when we contacted norfolk registry office they didn't have a 2pm appointment available so I booked 12pm but was advised to keep phoning them to see if they had a cancellation for 2pm. I tried for about 3 months but then gave in & admitted that we were destined to marry at 12pm. From my experience I would contact your registrar as soon as you can to book it.

I sorted out the venue first and then did the registra. Very simply the venue told me which office i needed to be calling (they even gave me the number) i phoned up explained i wanted to get married and where then got put through to another office. Then booked the date and had the choice of times, i knew you could book from a year in advance so was just inside that, although dont panic if your not.

We booked our registrar about 7 months in advance for a peak wedding date this summer, and had no problems. If you leave it late there might not be any of the most convenient times left, but we certainly didn't have a problem. Also, will your venue provisionally hold the date? Ours did for a couple of weeks before we had to pay a deposit, which was plenty of time to sort out the registrar. Plus, it only took a phonecall to provisionally book the registrar (everything was confirmed 3 months before when we paid).

So, unless you want to get married on a saturday in the next few weeks, I'd guess you're probably ok!

Our ceremony is £600! Due to being a Sunday, which happens to be the most expensive day for registrars x

yea our ceremony is around £400!!

to the OP - i would say call and reserve the registrar ASAP. i remember one hitcher who left it very late and then had to change her wedding date because there was no registrar available! no harm in asking the venue to hold the booking for a few days while you sort out the registrar. i don't see the point of waiting? x

Help there are no registrars available on my wedding day 13 aug 2011 untill 4.30pm what shall i do?

We checked our venue was free first and then booked the registrar before finalising with the venue. Our venue told us the name and number to contact, when we rang they only had an early or late time (we wanted between 1pm and 2pm), however the woman was lovely and went away to ask if they could put an extra "team" on that day. She rang me back within half an hour and gave us 130pm instead - we were very lucky - we must have rang on the right day!

I would ring them as soon as possible to make sure you get the time you want...

Our registrar is booked. We have booked for June 2012 Bank holiday Monday and it is costing £500! I did not think they were that expensive.

1.30pm however wishing I had gone for 1 I know it is only half an hour though lol x

Kent registrars guarantee to provide a registrar for your wedding! It says so on their website - https://www.akentishceremony.com/uk/wedding-booking. My co-ordinator at the venue notified the registrars when we booked, and we just need to do the leagal bits with them when there's 12 months to go. Mind you, Kent seems to be very expensive at £600+.

Our venue booked ours too. All we had to do was wait for the confirmation letter and pay the deposit.

Another Kent bride!!!

Yes, it is ridiculously expensive! All together, with notices, deposits and all fees, the costs have come to nearly £700.00! ? We do get married in 2012, but still seems an awful lot more than other people are paying!

Our weddins may 2012 and i rung as soon as we booked the venue. They said the process is call on the exact date a year before your wedding (suffolk county council rules!) and theyd book you then..altho the kind lady did inform me on the phone that they are changhing this to a first come first serve basis in the enxt few mths so to keep ringing up!!

its about £330 for them to come out to the venue and marry us, the cheek hey!!

You can't give notice until a year before, so you can't officially book your registrar until a year before (as when you give notice someone could protest and the wedding would have to be cancelled, so I guess in that way they can't absolutely guarantee a registrar would be at your wedding).

However, a lot of places seem to be willing to "reserve" you a registrar so when you have done the official stuff, the booking will be there. I would do this as soon as you can, but with the amount of time you have in place you should be fine.

As for timing I would go for 1pm or earlier - mine was 2pm and I found the day slightly rushed.

Same as, our venue sorted it out for us and we contacted the registrar to give notice. It is mega bucks though, a lot more than I anticipated! x

Yes it works out very expensive!

We were told that we couldn't book our registrar for our Leicestershire venue until a year in advance of the wedding. However i wanted to double check that this was the case, so rang the registrar council office. Lucky i did! The registrar informed that i could provisionally book the date up to 2 years in advance, and that there were only 2 available times left.. one of the which we wanted! I'm so glad that i rang them, else who knows what could have happened if i had left it until a year before!!

So make sure you all book early to avoid disappointment!

We're getting married June 16th 2012 and our fees cost us £395

We are getting married in church so dont need a registrar I was just having a nosey to see if it was cheaper... to book the church we want its £600 pound so to pay that for a registrar to come to you seems a little excessive.. I guess thouh its the same as everything wedding related as soon as you mention the occassion the price rockets!

We're getting married May 2012 and provisionally booked our registrar a couple of months ago. Glad we did as when i phoned the lady actually told me off for provisionally booking the venue without checking that they had a registrar available first!!! Luckily they had the date and time we wanted.

I would definitely recommend phoning the registrar's office to find out what their procedure is, as it seems to vary from place to place.

As for cost, i think ours will cost around £450.00 for them to attend venue!!

Yes i agree Lizzy.. nobody seems to tell you anything, so we all remain in the dark!

I think policy varies from county to county, it is excessive, considering to get married in a registry office is like a quarter of the price we have paid for the registrars to come out to us. Guess it doesn't help that they have to send 2 registrars out!

Were getting married in July 11 and we needed to provisionally book the registrar in May. they'd only got 2 times left for that day either half 1 or half 4!