Wedding Blog
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, 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 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. It’s 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. That’s 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!
Do any countries that you know of have interesting rules surrounding marriage? Share with the hive!
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France has a 40 day residency requirement before you can be “legally” married there…which is fine for French citizens, not-so-fine for DW’s. 
I had no opposition to taking a 40 day hiatus on the French Riviera, but alas, I must work.
Thanks for sharing! I never would have known any of that - very interesting!
France also requires you to get married at the city house.. it is the only legal way to get married. Church is not legal.. just spiritual, and done AFTER the city house… Yep, you are not allowed to get married in church if you are not lawfully married before.
Very interesting! I wasn’t aware of any of the legalities of an English wedding!
Yay thanks so much! My husband is from the UK, but we got married in Alabama. BIL is getting married in Norwich in October, and I have felt so out of the loop on English weddings!
Thank you Miss D’Orsay - this post was very interesting… I dreamed of getting married in Scotland several years ago, that would have made it difficult.
Can you at some point post about the legalities of getting English citizenship once you marry an English gentlemen?
We are having a DW in Scotland and are very familiar now with the legalities of marriage in the UK. We wanted a DW in Europe and it turned out Scotland (but not the entire UK) and Italy are the only two countries in Western Europe without a long “giving notice” requirement (I think). As Miss Quiche said, it’s 40 days in France and 15 days in Ireland!
Another interesting thing about UK weddings is that they don’t recognize LDS weddings in the temple as legal. The bride and groom have to be married in city hall, and then they quickly hurry over to the temple to get married all over again. I can’t imagine trying to fit another event into my day!
As Marina noted that France requires a city hall marriage first, so does Germany and the city hall is only open Monday through friday which is why many people have a small city hall wedding and then days, weeks or years later celebrate with a church wedding and party (it seems to me the length of time in between the two is often based on financial reasons).
You’re allowed to get married anywhere you want in Scotland, even in someone’s backyard. Also, if a religious or civil ceremony doesn’t appeal to you, you can get married by a humanist officiant, which is legal in Scotland but not in other British “countries” (Wales, England, Northern Ireland). Humanism basically is a non-religious paradigm that believes that people don’t need religion in their lives to lead good, moral lives. Anyway, that’s what my fiance and I are going for. We getting married in a stately home and things have been running smoothly.
Someone asked about getting citizenship. It’s getting harder and harder, but from my understanding, once you enter the UK as a fiance(e) and get married, you’ll need to apply for a Further Leave to Remain (FLR) visa which will allow you to stay in the country (and work and have access to all the services) for two years. After that, you can apply for settlement (Indefinite Leave to Remain - ILR). As for getting citizenship, it’s a little murky for me since I’m not interested in it (I’m Canadian), but you’ll have to take a test and pay X amount of pounds, but everything is explained well here: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/ukresidency/
I’m on a Working Holiday Visa and will be switching to FLR (Marriage) soon, so if anyone has any questions, I’ll try to help.
Miss D’Orsay, thanks for posting this. I’m so happy a Bee is in a similar boat as me.
That sound soooo complicated! I’m glad we got married in California. The most complicated part was making sure we had ID with our middle names (our driver’s license doesn’t so we needed to bring passports…)
Thanks Miss D’Orsay! My wedding’s not for over a year, but I love to read about someone going through the motions of an English/American wedding. Very helpful! Cheers!
@Kakita, @EDB and @Mrs D’orsay - I’m (unfortunately) way too interested in these legal and visa topics!
I’m a USAite in the UK on a work visa and just got married to an Englishman in Sept. We got married in the US (cheaper, could have an outdoor wedding, etc, etc, etc).
We didn’t get any visas for him and just had to present our passports and pronounce that we’ve never been married before to get our marriage license. I think this is fine in our case because we had no intent on settling in the US in the near future, I would worry that if we had done that and then stayed in the US with the intention of living there they would have frowned on the lack of fiance visa.
As I understand it, with my work visa, I can’t apply for ILR until the term of the visa is up (5 years from starting on it - another 2.5 years for me!). Our current thinking is that I will probably convert to a UK spousal visa which, like a UK fiance(e) visa, requires 2 years of living in the UK before being able to apply for ILR. From what I’ve been told from work, there’s been some sort of conversion to a points based system in the recent past, but I don’t know much about that. If you guys find anything out about this, feel free to pass it my way!
To make things worse, we’re both way flexible about where we end up, so I’m sure this won’t be the first visa puzzle we have to figure out. Our belated honeymoon to Aus and NZ next month could open up a whole new can of worms! 
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Mrs. D'orsay, Baltimore/Lancaster UK
Age and Occupation: 24, Stay at home fiance (formerly in nonprofit communications)
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Web site developer and designer; co-owner of men's skincare shop
Engagement Date: August 10, 2008
Wedding Date: August, 2009
Venue: Oakland Manor
About Me: I'm a Maryland raised environmental policy wonk/activist/organizer and communications aficionado. In the past year I've lived in Baltimore, MD, Tucson, AZ, Miami, FL and Lancaster, England. In my not so spare time I enjoy planning trips with Mr. D' Orsay, visiting friends and family and crafting like a mo-fo. I also enjoy modern dance classes, rugby and soccer but have been banned by my mother, MOHs, and Mr. D' Orsay from playing till after the wedding. I have an unnatural addiction to cheese and shoes, but love Mr. D' Orsay more than either and can't wait to become Mrs. D' Orsay!
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