Registrar and when to book

Hi,
Congratulations!
Once you have booked your venue, I would ring the nearby registrar (the venue should advise which one) to check your date is available and then place a deposit.We rang the registrar the day after booking our venue for our May 2025 wedding. Most council websites state how much they charge for registrar on each day of the week however, pricing isn’t confirmed until the financial year unfortunately so whatever they quote may go up.Hope that helps ☺️

View quoted message Hi


Thank you congratulations too. I was having a look at the local one and it says £35 per appointment my friend said it was about £150 for hers. Can we pay them up front or does it have to be on the day/a week before to pay. ☺️

When you can/have to pay varies depending on the area, so you'll need to check.

Do make sure a registrar is available for the day you've chosen before you make any set plans because the registrar is the one thing you must have, so if all the registrars are booked on your day, you can't get married then!

View quoted message Hi,
That sounds like your appointment to give notice which you have to do at least 28 days before you get married but can be done 12 months before.
There will be different pricing for a registar to marry you on your wedding day - give your local council a ring and ask

View quoted message Hey Jess. Thank you. When I looked at booking a registrar it says venue on where the ceremony is taking place. So to me that means you need to book the venue first then the registrar. But I’ll try and phone them to see what we need to do x

View quoted message Hey, yes mine did too when I spoke to them. I had a verbal agreement with my venue and they told me they had pencilled me in for the date I wanted but had to confirm the registrar before officially booking. So when I rang the registrar I knew my wedding was going to be at that venue it jus wasn’t officially booked. But all done in the same day. Hope that makes sense and you got/get sorted

Our venue also wouldn’t confirm our booking until we could send them evidence that a registrar was available. You only provisionally book them at this stage and I think we paid £100ish deposit.


When you give notice and it all gets approved then it gets confirmed and you pay the outstanding fee!

For us in Buckinghamshire, it was £35 each for an appointment to give notice (which you can do from 12 months prior to your date.) This is the beginning of the legal process of actually getting married. You need to have your date/venue booked to do this.

To actually book a registrar to come to our venue and perform our ceremony (as opposed to getting married in the council building) it was a whopping £700. They had different 'packages' on the council website but only the most expensive one involved an 'external venue'. We were able to book our venue without having already confirmed a registrar, though they did urge us to get it booked in as soon as possible when our date was secured.

We paid £100 deposit to secure date/time our council change £526 in total for registrar which is due 12 weeks prior to wedding and notice is £35 each on appointment which you can do anytime within 12 months of date I believe. We were a little confused as our venue charges £509 for the civil ceremony and thought this covered registrar but it does not. Our council told me venues are not very clear with what this charge is for but there fee is for registrar no matter we we get married (as long as it’s licensed of course) the venue fee is for holding it which is kinda frustrating when we are having the whole day and spending so much with them but the alternative is marry in registry office then go to venue after but given what we are paying £500 isn’t huge in the scheme of things but still could have been clearer! Think each council may be slightly different and venues set own charges. Our council could book up to 2 years in advance.

Oh girl 100% pre book your registrar early it's up to a few months wait and there hard to get a hold of I had a friend of mine not get to them in time for the wedding so they just did it unofficially then went a few weeks later to go legally marry so get it done before anything else as its the most time consuming thing )

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. For the registrar, it's advisable to book around 12-24 months in advance. Wishing you a smooth wedding planning journey!