Booking the Registrar for Dummies

Hi

Have you called the Gloucestershire Registry office to check if you can book more than a year ahead?

We live near Birmingham and are getting married in Worcester, we booked our venue for the 23/05/15 last November and like you I was under the impression I couldn't book the registrar until a year before the wedding. So on the 23rd May I called Worcester Registry office to book and was told they only had 4pm available and I would need to book it fast or probably loose that time. When I questioned why the other times had already gone, they told me you could book years in advance it was just an additional charge of £50.00 to do so. Maybe Gloucestershire is the same.

After a lot of stress and losing our photographer we ended up moving the date to the 06/06/15, thankfully our venue was really helpful and made no extra charges.

It is the giving notice part at your own local registry office that can only be done a year in advance, but you have months to do that, it doesn't have to be done before you can book the venue.

Hope that helps ?

Hi!

I would call them if you haven't already and find out, it's different in every area. Some areas allow bookings over a year in advance and others don't. I'm getting married in October too (3rd) in Lancashire and can't book mine over a year in advance. I booked my venue back in February and am going to phone and book my registrar at 9am on 3rd October to make sure I can get the time I want. Hope you get sorted!

Giving notice and booking the registrar are two separate events. You need to book a registrar in Gloucestershire, and give notice in Wiltshire. Most registrars will accept a provisional booking without you having given notice, and some will accept bookings more than a year in advance, plus some councils won't allow you to give notice until you've booked your registrar - so call the Gloucestershire office today and see if you can book!

Once that's done, you can make arrangements to give notice, which is less urgent at this stage.

The arrangments for booking ceremonies varies with each Registry Office under the steer of the Superintendant Registrar, with each office setting their own rules and costs. Most will accept a booking well in advance of 12 months and this is the key activity in getting the date you want. Some will want a deposit, others won't. All, as far as I'm aware, charge more for conducting a ceremony in a venue other than the registry office and will levy different charges for weekends, bank holidays etc. In terms of centent the law sets out there must be no religious references at all in either the spoken word or music you wish to include,but they will help you with that and most produce a helpful guide with sample ceremonies for you to look at.

So ring the relevant Registry Office in Gloucester and ask to make a provisional booking for your ceremony, then you can confirm with your venue and confirm with the registrar, or do it the other way round, doesn;t really matter, but you have to pencil the day in with one while you confirm with the other.

Giving notice is set by law as no sooner than 12 months before the date of the wedding and it has to be done in the district where you live and it costs, at present, £35 each. As long as you do it at least 16 days before your ceremony, you'll be fine with this, but again, doing it sooner is better. You'll find again that different offices work differently in when they take appointments for giving notice. It's only on weekdays, but some restrict it to just one or two days a week between only a small window of time, others are more flexible and have appointments all through mon-fri.

Hope that helps x

Hi,

I also live in Wiltshire, I booked the register for my wedding in April 2014 but am not getting married until October 2015
I was told when I booked the register that my OH and I would need to give notice a year before the wedding day but it was no problem to book the register before that, as long as we paid the deposit (which was £40)

Hope this helps

x

Gloucestershire do not have any restrictions on when you can book the ceremony. They do, however, take a non refundable booking fee (not deducted from the ceremony fee).

Thanks for the advice everyone I have booked our ceremony and it was easier than I thought! Just need to sort out giving notice and then we're all set.

Glad you got it sorted Amy

Oooh another Gloucestershire bride! Where's your venue AmyMay?

We're getting married at Wyck Hill House at Stow on the Wold. It's gorgeous - a little further away that what we would have liked, but it just felt like the one when we were looking round!