Failed attempt to give notice :(

Hi I'm slightly confused about what you mean but when we gave notice we had to do it in the area we lived (south gloucestershire) and we are marrying in bath. So they just sent the paperwork down to the bath registers office and then bath sent us the wedding pack via email which we filled in and sent to bath. I would say you don't need to let them know. If you've booked the date that's fine and they won't change it and you still have ages to get all the revelant documents together. It's not like you're doing anything illegal you just didn't have the right stuff and will go back in a month or so with the right stuff. I really wouldn't worry, some couples leave it until the last minute and run out of time and you have 11 months still. We did ours in June and are marrying next week x

Oh I sort of empathise! We went to give notice at the end of September [we get married 10th April], and I spent ages making sure we had all the right stuff between us. OH's mum died when he was younger and no one has a copy of her birth certificate, and his dad told him that she was born in Wakefield [where we were giving notice], so they said that they could access the records there and there was no need to get a new birth certificate for her. Well, turns out he was wrong [and we later realised that it is actually written on his birth certificate that his mum was born in Leeds!], so, I managed to do my part successfully, but basically he had to contact the Leeds office, get a copy of her certificate, and make a new giving notice appointment. Which is now in December. Luckily still within time for April. But because we couldn't give notice a certain time after provisionally booking the registrar, we had to pay the full balance of £300 that it is costing us. Although we apparently only have until January, and f it isn't done then we will lose it still [which is ridiculous since we have paid in full!] Luckily it will be done in December!

We are getting married in Lacashire and are based in the Wakefield area of Yorkshire at the moment, we give notice here and everything gets sent over there.

Good grief, it is so much simpler in Scotland! We just sent off the forms with our birth certificates and they were back with confirmation within 3 days. H2B doesn't know his dad's whereabouts or occupation and they were fine with it. They didn't need to see my deed poll either. Sorry OP, I know that isn't much help

We had similar issue last week. OH's passport is expired and we were told to get his mom's birth certificate. Unfortunately no-one in the family knew that his mom's maiden name (as written on all the kid's birth certificates) is NOT the name she was born with!

Registrar was a bit snotty with us too and was completely unhelpful. Told us to 'go away and have a think about what we wanted to do' and 'ask family members' about where to find the legal document about the change of name. What she didn't tell us was that legally, especially in 1947, you didn't need to change a name by deed poll so the document she would need doesn't even NEED to exist, never mind the fact it probably won't!

So annoyed as it now means we have to get his passport renewed.

Wedding in April so should be ok but really wanted it done!

Shouldn't need to tell the other district unless you definitely CAN'T give notice in time for your wedding.

Hope you get it sorted!

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I emailed the registry office just to confirm what we need so I don't end up going again and wasting another day off. I have a feeling this is going to be nothing but trouble.

They want the full birth certificate for my mother - which she doesn't have, all she has is the short one - I told them this, they said her passport should be fine. Although since she has remarried, if I brought that they would also want to see her marriage certificate.

On discussion with my mum she's going to try and get a copy of her full birth certificate to make things easier - only thing is, even though her maiden name is listed on my birth certificate, under 'mother's details' her surname is different as she was married and divorced years before I was born, and stuck with this surname, the surname I was born with (she was never married to my Dad, who isn't even listed on the certificate anyway). My worry now is that they'll want to see a marriage certificate for this even though the guy she was married to was never anything to do with me. I'm getting so wound up over this - I'm just thinking where is it going to end? My Mum was married twice before I was born, and she changed her name each time - why do I have the feeling they're going to want to see evidence of all of these?! I know they need to be thorough, but surely there's a limit!

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm so worried and confused.

Now, feel free to ignore me, because I'm getting married in church and, as I'm a regular attendee, haven't had to do much at all to prove who I am (other than get Mum to look up where I was baptised).

But my understanding is that all of this documentation stuff is to prove you are who you say you are. Which is why passports are easiest, because (in theory) someone has already done their checking for them.

So my best, uneducated, advice is that if you need to prove who your mum is, best to have all paperwork they could possibly ask for ready for your meeting, which for the OP would suggest to me: Mum's birth certificate, document proving her name when you were born - i.e marriage certificate, & documents proving her current name.

That way hopefully you'll be ready to jump through whatever hoops they throw at you (mixed metaphor, but you get what I mean).

If in doubt, ring the registry office again?

You have my sincere sympathies - sounds like a massive faff and much like InkedDoll and similarly unhelpfully, I'm very glad I don't have to go through it.

Can't you just renew your passport and then you wouldn't need your mums birth certificate?

I was thinking the same as Sazzle24 - would it not just be easier to renew your passports as they don't ask for as much information. You might use them at some point in the next ten years (in addition to them being good for other ID things). The only problem with your passport being that you would then have to pay again to get a new one in your married name or book all future travel in your maiden name.

I'm starting to think that if we had just renewed our passports this would have been so much less of a faff. My Mum phoned the registry office today to check because she was just as confused as I am - a woman who was apparently much nicer than the one we saw attempted to clear it up.

She said it was all about proving we're British citizens so we need full birth certificates for ourselves and birth certificates for our mothers, which can be either short or long. In terms of my Mum having her married surname on my birth certificate, this is apparently irrelevant. All they're concerned with is the maiden name - as long as the maiden name is on my birth certificate and matches with what's on hers, everything else doesn't matter, they don't need marriage certificates/decree absolutes etc.

This woman also said I'm welcome to pop in at any time to check what I have is correct, so I may do this a bit nearer the time - given I was told one thing via email and then something else today, I'm not particularly sure who to follow, but we shall see. I'm just paranoid we'll end up going again and be told a second time we can't do it because we don't have what we need - if that happens I think we'll definitely be renewing our passports.

I know that passports do need to be valid to count for this but surely if we have both had British passports at some point, surely that proves that all of this has been checked beforehand and that we're British citizens?!

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