Legal side of marriage......confused! ?

Hi BriertonBride,

Me and my OH are getting married in a different county to where we live.

We first had to book a registrar and pay a deposit in the county we were going to be married in. Then we give notice at a local registry office. Once you've given notice locally you can pay for your registrar in the other county in full.

I hope this makes sense?

You give notice to the council that you live in and organise a registrar from the council that you are to marry in. It might depend on the council but I don't think you can give notice over 12 months before your ceremony date. I'm giving notice 4 months before we marry. Again it might vary with different councils but at ours we can only give notice Mon-Fri between 9am-3pm- thankfully neither one of us is a teacher so don't have to wait for a school holiday!

Frisky is right. We had to give notice at the country registry office we live in then call the registrars in the district we were getting married in and book them. To be honest they'll have had this situation a billion times so they're well used to it.

You can't give notice til 12 months before your actual wedding date but it's well worth calling the registrars where you are getting married and see if you can book them asap before they get booked up by someone else.

Thank you all, it makes perfect sense now!

So to give notice it has to be within the year in the county you live and you book the registrar in the county you will marry!

Thanks again ??

Yes. When it comes to booking the registrar, some will allow you to book, or at least "pencil in" a booking more than a year in advance, so it's worth making enquiries in case they get booked up! But you definitely can't give notice until a year before the wedding.

Thank you.

i just rang them up and was told in the County I want they won't take bookings more than a year in advance so have to make sure I am ready to ring up on the day!! Eek!

We were lucky enough to be able to pencil in with or registrar 18 months in advance. When we did that we were told we had to give notice as soon as we could so 12 months before or within 2 months of that date. We gave notice last week and received our ceremony pack thru the post a few days later so all worked out and our booking is confirmed.