Help! Want to get married in 2 weeks!

[BooBooMagoo]

We’d like to get married in 2 weeks but didn’t realise there was a minimum 28 day notice period!!!

Does anyone have any experience of being granted an exception to this? From my research online, an exception will only be granted in a very very limited set of circumstances such as terminal illness or military deployment or something. Does anyone know of any other exceptions that have worked?

Also - what is the point of this ridiculous antiquated rule??? Do people really decide to get married but then change their mind within 28 days??

The rule is because the announcement is published for the public to see and to give them time to say something should they know that either of the people isn't in a position to get married, such as they are already married etc. At least am pretty sure that is the reason.

Why the hurry?

No you won’t be able to get round it any other way. The only thing you could do is have a no -legal ceremony then have the proper wedding after.

Why does it have to be in two weeks?

Can you do a private ceremony in two weeks and then do the official signing the register later? Have you booked a venue without checking the regs?

Book flights to Vegas?

Yes only something serious. I did a letter for a patient who had a terminal illness and they managed to get married before she died. Very sad.

I think it’s 15 days at Gretna Green

What happened to Special Licences?

Well it's pointless to decide this is 'an antiquated rule' and be annoyed about it - as pp have said there are legalities to be followed and one of them involves giving public notice in case of objections. If you or your partner are a non UK citizen the Registrar apparently will need to refer the application to the Home Office to check the marriage is legal. This takes even longer than 28 days.

Why so desperate? Unless your circumstances truly are within the very limited ones then you can wait, surely?

Special Licences were from the Archbishop to allow people to get married in a church parish they were not resident in and were rare (although common enough in Regency romances).

You can get a special licence or general licence but needs to be justified eg our local council suggests illness of one of those marrying, a serious operation with a 5% or higher risk of death, illness of a close relative, military deployment or civil service deployment overseas where marriage is a requirement or to contact them to discuss - we want to marry in 2 weeks and hadn’t got round to sorting the paperwork wasn’t on the list

There was an interesting documentary about sham marriages on Radio 4 last week. I’m not at all suggesting that yours is a sham OP, but the 28 day rule is used to check that a marriage isn’t immigration fraud or coercive. It’s not ridiculous and antiquated.

How on earth did you get to this point without realising - did you have a registrar / priest booked?

Does it need to be quick so the husband who you mentioned in your previous thread doesn't find out?!

I work for my local registration service booking weddings - as everyone has said there is no way around it. To be married in England or Wales you have to give at least 28 days notice. You are both interviewed separately, you have to provide specific documents including full birth certificates, parents birth certificates, some occasions grandparents birth certificates, valid passports.
Please look into this carefully and research. You also need to book a venue, register office which wouldn't be possible at such short notice.

We're getting married next week, 5 weeks from giving notice. We're in Scotland, I've not been interviewed? I made appointment with registrar via email, DP attended on his own - brought my docs with him. Set the date and we're set to go.

Oh it’s not a sham! We’ve been together nearly 10 years, two kids, both British. We just never got around to marrying as we’ve been too busy with life. We finally decided to crack on with it but there’s lots of family politics - we want a small wedding, with just two witnesses but we both have big families - so inviting 2 would
mean either offending lots of people or extending the invite to lots of people.

My best friend of 25 years is visiting in two weeks from Australia and we realised that was the perfect opportunity to have a quick fuss-free wedding and for her and her husband to be witnesses without offending our families. It would also mean a lot to have her there. So we started planning for a quick registry office wedding today and straight away ran into the 28 day rule - I’d never heard of it!

Unfortunately I don't think you'll be able to skip it op.

It's technically so people have time to object.

Unfortunately I don't think that would count as exceptional circumstances