booking registrar

Mine rang me back the same day and I was allowed to book almost 20 months in advance...does seem strange that they were so laid back about it! Maybe just keep ringing them....

It varies with each Registry Office - some will let you make a provisional booking over a year in advance, others will not. We booked ours just under a year before the wedding and the time I wanted (2pm) had already gone! We had 1pm instead, but the day went so quickly I'm glad we had the earlier time in the end. If you haven't heard back by the time it is exactly 1 year to go, I'd call again, especially if you are dead set on having a certain time.

I would keep ringing them! I emailed ours and asked if they were available on 4th May 2013 at 1.30pm. Didn't hear anything back after a few days so I rang them as the council buildings were being done up so I thought perhaps they didn't have access to their emails. When I rang I didn't mention that I had emailed (looking back I still wonder why I didn't) and when I asked for their availability they said that slot was gone and they could only do either 11.30am or 3.30pm which I thought was either too early or too late. Soooo, I panicked, rang up OH almost in tears wondering what to do as we had already booked the venue and had our hearts set on that date. After a lot of "what shall we do? what shall we do?" we decided then that we would have the registrar on the Friday, and booked in a humanist ceremony for the Saturday at 1.30pm - we had originally wanted this but thought that having to pay for both the registrar and a humanist celebrant was just too much (humanist weddings are not legal in northern ireland so you also need a registrar anyway). So I rang the registrar back and asked if we could book the Friday slot at 3.30pm instead. That was all fine but when we got to the part where she asked my name and I told her she said "but you're the one booked in for Saturday at 1.30pm" Basically they had read my email asking if they were available then and booked me in without emailing me back and telling me!!! It was too late to change it though as we had already booked the humanist guy for the Saturday and I didn't want to cancel on him.
I'm actually quite pleased the way it has turned out now as we get to have 2 ceremonies, a quick one with the registrar on the Friday and then a longer one with the humanist guy on the Saturday, so it means the celebrations will go on all weekend (hopefully we won't drink too much on the Friday ha ha). For our registrar "legal" ceremony we are literally just having the vows and the signing of the register, we are having all the readings and personal stuff on the Saturday instead. I'm hoping it will mean I'm not as nervous walking down the aisle on the Saturday as we'll actually already be husband and wife!

Sorry for the really long post!!

Although my registrar let us book more than a year in advance, I also had to wait for the registrar to call back, the admin lady took the same details as yours, don't know why though because the registrar only asked our names and the time we wanted, the venue and took the deposit, nothing an admin person couldn't do, I rang on the Thursday and was promised a call back on the thurs/fri, had to chase on the Monday and got a call back late Monday, when we tried to book for giving notice we had the same trouble, except a longer wait and an email moaning, in order to actually get the call back!

I phoned the other day for mine and they called back a few hours later and they provisionally booked me until i can pay the deposit although they only hold for 10 days and OH doesnt get paid for another 2 weeks so hope they hold for another couple of days