contacting register how does it work?

Youneed to ring them and let them know where you are getting married and book an appointment.

At said appointment youl need t take passports and/or drivers liscence and you will then have a chat about if youve been married before and what not.

Then one of you will leave the room and the other will be asked VERY basic questions (dads name, occupation, blah blah) and then you will swap!

And then ta dah!! all done!! you will either be given or sent a booklet of vows and readings so you can pick what you want to say etc oh, and you have to pay for the privilidge!

Do you mean the registrar?

You need to contact the Births, Deaths and Marriages dept of the county you live in and the county where you are getting married, if different.

They will need all normal identification information.

What do you mean by sharing it?

Have you picked a date and venue? You need to do this

If so you need to check that the registrar where the venue is is available and book them for that date and time, before you pay the deposit for the venue. I had to pay £20 to book the date - not sure if it varies by council.

Then, you need to give notices, up to a year before the wedding. You do this with the registrar where you live. This means proving your identity and answering some (pretty easy) questions. It is the registrars opportunity to check its not a sham marriage or forced or whathaveyou, as well as a legal requirement to publicise the date and time of your wedding (for 2 weeks) to allow anyone who may want to object to do so. Sounds serious, but its not likely to happen! This costs £33.50 each i think, and if you and OH are resident in different council areas then you need to go to the different registrars.

In regards to sharing info, once you have given notice then you get the OK to get married. For us the registrar where we lived sent this to the registrar where we are getting married, but in some cases you may need to take it to them yourself.

Nearer the wedding you will meet with the registrar assigned to your service and will go through the ceremony wording, discuss what readings somngs etc you might want.

Different areas charge different amounts for either registry office or venue weddings so you will need to ask the registrar where you are getting married.

If you call them I'm sure they will tell you everything you ened to know - how they function does seem to bary slightly from area to area.

HTH

Sharing i mean do they put a notice up or something? and does our information just stay with the registrar?

Yes, when you give notices they are displayed for 15 days in the Register office. In ours it was on a TV screen in the receptiion:

https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships/overview

Oh thanks very much!!!!

We're getting marked April 2013 and rung the office but they won't book round here until a year before so I have to ring back when there is a year to go. It varies as I have seen some who have already managed to book registrar and get married after us. I'm not sure what they need yet but been told passports driving licence etc but sure they will tell me when I book appt x

Fortunately ours moved to being able to book 2 years in advance just before we booked! So much easier.

The directgov link above will tell you what you need to give notice. You don't need anything to book the date and time with the registrar, you can book and give notice later (but has to be between a year and 2 weeks before the wedding)

I think it depends on the venue, as my venue is contacting the registrar for us, and then the registrar's office will send us something for us to respond to in order to complete the registration process. And then we have to go into the office in Maidstone in person to give notice, as Ant needs to get permission to marry a foreign national (hah!). We can give notice anything time between 12 months to 2 weeks prior to the wedding!

Everyone has to give notice in person... but there are extra check for those under 'immigration control' hehe!

I am a control freak but I'd hate the venue being in charge of booking the registrar! But then, I'm getting to the point that no one can respond to me or do anything fast enough! I'm hoping that by stressing now I will have a happier couple of months int he run up to the big day!!

What happens if you are getting married in a different area to where you live i.e. we live in surrey but getting married in berkshire??

Hi Michelle

We live in Surrey too, so we booked the registrar to perform the ceremony at Windsor & Maidenhead Regristrar's office (can only booked a year to the day before) and we have given notice at the Weybridge office (as this is our closest office). We can pick the papers up from Weybridge 15 days from giving notice and we have to take them to the W&M office.

Nearer the date we will have a meeting with the registrar performing our ceremony to go through the details, readings, etc

Thanks so much - we are at the same venue as you too i think. Sorry I'm being really thick here, so we give notice to the one closest we live to in surrey and we book the register in berkshire?? We dont' get married until next sep so have a bit of time!

If you have your venue and date, contact the registrar in the county where you are getting married first. Find out availability and if you are allowed to book this far in advance. If not, find out when you can.

Once you have provisionally booked the registrar in the county you are getting married in, contact the registrar's office in the county where you live. They will then tell you exactly what to do from there.

Yes we are venue twins, so you'll need to book your registrar at Windsor & Maidenhead office. To give notice, check the surrey county council website for the full list of registry offices in the area and contact your nearest