Scotland vs England giving notice

I hadn’t heard of this! We live in England but originally planned marrying in Scotland and weren’t told to do this. We just have to give notice at our local registry office and fill in an M10 form. Sorry I can’t be of much help! Hopefully someone who has recently married can help

View quoted message

No worries So England-to-Scotland is apparently v simple - Scotland are much more relaxed about it all. Just hoping the registrar team gets back to me slightly quicker than the 2 months it took the Scottish people to tell me all this!! Thanks anyway

View quoted message That’s not good! What council is it in England thats handling your notice? North or south?

All good in the end - just had confirmation from the English registry office that we can stay there for 7 days and it's all above board and we won't be told off by any authorities!! Just thought I'd update in case anyone has the same problem in future

Hi! Seen this old post and we are going through the same thing! What did people do?! The legal wording is totally puzzling me and just want someone to break it down simply for me, our wedding is April 2024 and I’m already worried about this! Xx

View quoted message

I'm like an old hand at this now!

So basically you need to find a friend/family member you can stay with in England. It doesn't seem to have to be in the district that you're going to marry in, because from the point you stay with your friend, you give notice as though you live in England.
Firstly book your notice appointment with the English council where your friend lives, using their address if prompted. Stay with your friend for 9 consecutive days in total (the day you arrive, plus 7 days, plus the date of your appointment) and then you can give notice giving their address.

The way we did it was to email/call the council to book rather than doing it online. They then provided a template of a letter for your friend/family member to sign to confirm you'd stayed there. You bring that, along with a utility bill or similar of theirs, as proof of address. If they rent, I think you also have to provide their tenancy agreement but not sure.

All a long winded way of saying 'don't worry'! It all seems really complex and like you're doing something wrong, but if you contact the council and are open about the issue, they will have encountered it so many times before

Hope this helps!

View quoted message Thank you so so much! Did you have to do anything in Scotland?


I didn’t realise getting married to an Englishman would be complicated 😂! It’s obviously not as complicated as it reads. I just want to get it right 😂!
So did you do this in a specific time scale?
So sorry for the questions I just wanna get it right! We are getting married in the Lake District. But his family live in Birmingham, we could stay with his family and go to a local office there? Would that still be ok? Or does it need to be in the district of where we marry?
Thank you so so much!! Xx

View quoted message

100% feel your pain!

We didn't have to do anything in Scotland. The exception is if only one of you does the 9 day stay in England then the other one of you has to get a form (M10 I think?) from your home (Scottish) council to give to the English registry office, as well as giving notice in Scotland. It just seemed complex when we could tie it in with a holiday down south!

You just need to book the appointment in England and then be down for those 9 days immediately before/including.

I don't 100% know about the district. I THINK you'd be fine to do it in birmingham because you effectively give notice as an English person with your family's address. We were getting married in the same district we stayed in anyway so I don't know for sure.

Honestly, the best thing would be to send any questions to an English registry office, say Birmingham, and they'll be able to help