US meets UK

I’m learning more all the time about the legalities of getting married in England. Even though we’re getting married in America I’m interested in the ins and outs of English culture, especially all things wedding related!

A few English wedding legalities I found of interest:

Except for Jewish and Quaker ceremonies, you can only be legally married between the times of 8am and 6pm. There is also a list of legally allowed places that you can be married, if you are getting married outside of a church and you have to call the General Register Office. So that means none of those gorgeous in a field, at home weddings that I’ve seen-Miss Cheese, I’m glad you live in America!

You must must also give notice to the Superintendent Registrar of the districts where you and your intended live at least 16 days prior to the wedding date. You must show evidence of you name, age and nationality. Its a little bit different in Scotland, where you must give notice in the district that you intend to be married in. Prior to October 1st, 2008 you could only be married in the parish church where you lived. Thats right, this past OCTOBER, is when this was changed.

Now you can be married in any church as long as certain conditions are met. Check out You and Your Wedding for the conditions (which is where I found out all this information). You can now be married in any church you have a connection to-provided the vicar agrees. In the Church of England the vicar counts as the registrar and the reading of the banns counts as giving notice. The reading of the banns is the announcement of your intention to marry made three Sundays prior to your wedding, in case anyone feels like objecting.

In civil ceremonies no religious references or readings can be made. This needs to be approved by your registrar prior to the ceremony. If you’d like more wedding info on English weddings check direct.gov.uk for more info.

I hope this has given you some insight into the legalities of an English wedding- just in case you were planning one

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 2:24 am and is filed under Wedding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.