Celebrants vs registrar

If you're doing the legal bit beforehand, there's no reason why you can't get a friend or family member to do a celebrant wedding for you. Might be worth wording your invites to people so that they know you've had the legal wedding earlier though - e.g. "you are invited to a celebration of/blessing of our marriage" rather than "you are invited to our wedding." You don't want anyone watching your ceremony to be panicking because they realise it's not a legal marriage and don't know if you know that or not!

Having a friend or family member officiate could be a practical way to save on costs.

If you have a family member or friend who's good at public speaking, you could consider getting them to officiate your wedding.

However, there is a real skill in crafting a ceremony that works, and most importantly is a real reflection of you and your partner and what you mean to each other.

Some celebrants (myself included) offer a scriptwriting only service. This would mean you could meet a celebrant online or in person, and they could get to know you and what you mean to one another. Based on this, usually plus some individual questions to you and your partner via whatsapp or email, they could craft a ceremony script for you at roughly half the cost of having a celebrant there on the day.

This is based on a celebrant charging £600-700 and a scriptwriting service costing in the region of £350. Perhaps something to consider?