Giving notice and booking registrar - two different counties?

Yes you need to give notice in the county you live and then book the registrar for the county that you are having your ceremony.

In Oxfordshire, you have to obtain a marriage licence, not more than 12 months before you get married. You will have to give the venue name etc so everything should be booked before this. This is called "giving notice". They send all the documents to the place you will be married...

In Gloucestershire, you shouldn't book a venue before you can provisionally book a registrar. You will need to ask the venue which register office covers them, phone that register office up and see if you can make a booking for a registrar for the time/date (whilst you know the venue is free at those times). When the registrar is provisionally booked, you can book the venue and then confirm with registrar (may have to delay as some registrars don't take firm booking more than 12 months before the date). The venue/registrar thing was a bit of a frantic ten mins for me, getting pencilled in all over the show. But ultimately, booking a venue is meaningless unless you know you have a registrar to marry you.

We're similar; I come under Lambeth (South London), she comes under Surrey, and we're getting married in Hampshire.

Firstly we booked our venue provisionally for the date we wanted, then booked the time and date with the Hampshire registrar. They sent us a confirmation of the time and date. That meant we were then able to confirm the venue too.

I then had my interview and gave my notice locally in Lambeth, showing them the paperwork from Hampshire. My 'giving notice' was displayed for 15 days in case anyone objects, then I collected my 'piece of blue paper' from Lambeth. The computer system at Lambeth sent notification that I had "passed" to the Hampshire computer automatically.

My b2b then had her interview in Surrey, showing them the paperwork from Hampshire, and her 'notice' was also displayed for 15 days then she picked up her piece of blue paper. Note that the '15 days' can be simultaneous, part overlap or months apart, and both parties can file in any order - it doesn't really matter.

As soon as her piece of blue paper was ready, notification was sent automatically by the Surrey office that she had 'passed'. Now that the Hampshire computer had received notification that both of us were legally free to marry, we were automatically sent the pack of paperwork that we needed to 'build our service' which we're still working on - different offices have different time limits that they need all the paperwork back by so do check but "sooner the better" is usually a good rule in case there are problems with any of your choice of readings or songs so they can be changed if necessary.

Marginally annoying that we had to basically pay 3 sets of registry fees (one for me, one for her, one in Hampshire) but it's worth it

It's annoying that you can't book a registrar but need to book the venue; presumably your registrars will tell you when you are able to book so you can make a note to ring up on that day as soon as the office opens and you should be fine - unless it's an odd day like a Sunday, a bank holiday or other special date where there are few registrars available there are usually more than enough to go round and many councils have 'reserves' they can call upon if necessary.

Hello m’dear, don’t worry you are experiencing exactly the same situation as I and many others did!

First thing you need to do is contact the Registrars in the county you are getting married (the venue should be able to point you in the right direction as to which town office to contact) and book your date. Most Registrars allow you to do this 12 months in advance but this is the very first thing you need to do as you don’t want a venue booked with no Registrar!

You will need to pay them a deposit at this time, ours was only £50 but not sure how much other registry offices charge.

Then you will have to give notice at the Registry Office of the county in which you live, which costs about £35-50 each, but this can be done nearer the time – we are getting married in September and have our appointment to give notice this Friday. I think as long as it is done 12 weeks before the wedding date then that is ok.

Hope this makes sense and helps!