Confused

I think the first thing you need to do is decide where in Cornwall you want to get married and then contact that local council and book yourself and your partner a notice of marriage appointment.


We didn’t realise that where you get your notice is where you need to get married. So, if you have the notice of marriage appt in Hull at the local council, you need to get married in that borough. The reception can be anywhere though. So, if you have your heart set on Cornwall, that would be the very first thing to do. It takes just over a month for you to get the notice from the meeting!

View quoted message Oh thank you so much it has been confusing as anything I will get in touch with them thank you so much xxx

I suggest you start by deciding on a budget and rough guest numbers so you can look at venues that are not too expensive/too big/too small for what you want. The website of Cornwall Council have a list of all licensed venues, if you are not sure where to start. Once you have found a venue that works for you, discuss availability. You will then need to contact the Cornwall registry offices to see if they have a registar available on that date. You may need to go back & forth between the venue/registry office to find a date that both are available.

I disagree with Georgina's comment. You need to give notice of your marriage to the registry office you are a resident of, so Hull for you. You have to do this at least 1 month before your ceremony but no more than 12 months before. You need to give them the details of the date/time/place of your wedding so you will need all that booked with Cornwall before you speak to Hull. If your partner lives elsewhere, they will need to give notice separately to their local registry office.

View quoted message Thank you hun I didn't know where to start with it xxx

If you have your heart set on Cornwall then go for it, but do consider the travelling you’ll have to do between now and the wedding.
First off finding the venue, then in the run up to the wedding you’ll have meetings with the venue (normally at least 1 in person one, we need 2 in total, but one can be done by Zoom), hair & makeup trial, florist visits, cake tasting, menu tasting, and then anything/anyone else you need to be down there to find. You could have anything between 3 trips and 8+ trips depending on how you plan it all, and that’s a lot of petrol, nights away and all the rest that goes with it.

Also, Hayley is correct - in England & Wales (Scotland has different rules I believe), you give notice under the council in which you reside, so Hull in your case, and they send the details to the registrar/council of the area where you’re getting married. There are two aspects to contacting a council. You contact the local council of where you’re getting married to book your registrar for the time, date and venue of where you’d like to be married (this can incur a cost of anywhere between £200 & £750, from what I’ve seen in this forum). They normally can be booked up to 2 years in advance, but I think some councils apply an early booking fee if you do it more than a year in advance. Once your time, date, venue, registrar etc. is sorted then you separately (& normally later) give notice of your intent to marry under the council area in which you reside. You can’t do this till you know where & when you’re getting married which is why it’s normally later. This costs £35 per person, so £70 total usually. Also you can’t have the latter appointment to give notice, till you’re within 12 months of your wedding date, and you have to give notice at least a month before the wedding date.
Hope that helps xx

I'm getting married in Cornwall and live in Kent - I'd just echo the advice to think about how regularly you could travel down. We visit Cornwall a lot anyway, so knew we could regularly go to the venue and meet with suppliers, etc. To give you a sense, we've had 4 in person meetings with our venue already - and we're not getting married for another 6 months - for each one it's been incredibly useful to look at the space again and there's definitely a lot of things I've put down as a "I can't sort that right now, that's on the list for next time we go to Cornwall" so just brace yourself for lots of trips.

That being said, if, like us, you already visit a lot - Cornwall is the most magical place with LOADS of venue options, our guests are so excited and many are making a summer holiday out of our wedding, so it's definitely a super lovely idea.