Registrar timings - horrible thought

It could happen but it's unlikely they'll be unavailable for all time slots during the day.

What date and day of the week are you looking at? Usually you would provisionally book your venue while you call and confirm with the registrar. Then book the venue properly.

Yes, it can happen. You will almost certainly need to book your registrar and venue at the same time. My venue wouldn't accept the booking without a registrar having pencilled us in. The registrar needed to know the venue.

It was a frantic tens mins on the phone.

Call them and ask what times they have for your day? Ours only opened up dates a year in advance so if you ring a year before I'm sure you'll get one you want, we got our first choice and only booked 4 months before!

Our venue allowed us to hold the date provisionally without a deposit until we could speak to the registrar. The registrar then confirmed they didn't take bookings more than a year in advance so we went ahead and booked the venue and called the registrar a year to the date and booked them. It's worth speaking to both the venue and the registrar to see if you can be pencilled in until the other can confirm.

Our venue let us pencil in a booking for 24 hours to give us time to book the registrar and then pay the deposit once this was done. The venue wouldn't let us book until we'd confirmed a time with the registrar and the registrar wouldn't let us book without the name of a venue so you have to do both at the same time.

OMG, thank you so much for your replies. I knew I had to book the registrar but didn't realise it made a difference to the planning of our day...

Off to put the registrars number on speed dial.

x

We're wondering exactly this! We've booked our venue (23 months in advance!!!) and need to pay a deposit to hold the date. The registrar (Windsor & Maidenhead) won't take bookings more than a year in advance. I phoned them up and they advised to come and queue up on the morning at the registry office exactly a year in advance & put them on speed dial for that morning as well!

They did also say they have four teams of registrars go out on a summer Saturday so even if we don't get our first choice time slot they should be able to fit us in.

(Still panicking about it though.....)

Our local registrar allows bookings up to two years in advance although I know some venues we've looked at list their local registrars, do you have to have the one locallest (is that a word?!) to the venue?

Registar offices are run by individual councils. The one you book for the ceremony is the local authority that contains your venue.

You give notice at the local authority where you live but this can be done at a later date.

Thank you!

I had a close shave with this! I booked the venue & thought that my registry office didn't take bookings any further than 12 months in advance. With 18 months to go I rang them just to check what was what. To my horror they said they only had 2 times left for my date which were 12pm & 4.30pm! I had my heart set on 2pm so was very upset but took the 12pm slot. I was stupid. Do what everyone else has said & don't confirm with the venue & pay a deposit until you know you can get a registrar at the time you want x

Our venue provisionally held our date back in june 2012 whilst we contacted the registrars. The registrars 'pencilled us in' for our wedding date with confirmation via post. As long as we gave notice within the dates 15th May 13-15th Jun 13 ( a year from the wedding ) our agreement stood. We are in essex. x

Second question then, when do I need to give notice to OUR local authority. and to get it straight;

I need to notify;

Our local authority

Authority/registrar local to venue.

TIA x

There's no harm in calling them straight away - they can then give you the timescales for when you need to give notice etc.

We did this:

Provisionally booked venue (about 16 months before our wedding)

Called registrar in county where the venue was - they informed us that we couldn't book properly until a year in advance but they could pencil us in. (Every local authority is different though)

Booked Venue once we were penciled in with registrar

Rang wedding venue county registrar at the year to go mark and booked properly

Contact the registrar in the county where we live and they booked us in to give notice

Our county then sent all the info to the other county (although some give it to you to pass on yourself)

Our registrar was from the Windsor & Maidenhead office, and I queued up a year to the day before (got there at 8am, the office didn't open until 9.30am!) and was the only person there. I got the time I wanted as they took my booking before answering the phones.

Some people thought I was mad for doing it, but it was a couple of hours out of my day to get the time we wanted for our wedding

Oooooh, that's really good to know, thank you! Do both of you have to be there or can I send my fiancee on his own?!

I definitely don't want a 4pm slot having confirmed a day's worth of food... although I guess we could have a pre-wedding party

Our registrar pencilled us in 18 months before the date. She told me to phone back on the 12 month date, which iI did and she swapped pencil for pen. She had already said that they would try to make contact with me if I hadn't have phoned them in due course (a few days? a week?).

Only one of you needs to go