why such a long wait for a wedding?

[JudyBlumeForever]

Dp and I have decided we ought to get married. Neither of us are particularly fussed about having a big or even a small wedding. We just want to rock up at the registry office, sign the paperwork and carry on as normal.

But the earliest date they can fit us in for a simple 10 minute appointment is..... October.

Aibu that this seems like a crazy long wait? The earliest we can get an appt to register our intent to marry and they can check our passports/proof of address is halfway through August - they are fully booked till then.

It's at least 3 months notice to the state in Ireland to get married - there are exceptions but very few and far between

Tell your local registry office you want to get married quickly, that you have all relevant paperwork and to let you know asap if they have a cancellation for a 'notice to marry' appointment. We needed to get married quickly, and after we had given notice we were able to find a Tuesday lunchtime cancellation at our preferred registry office, just by phoning, explaining the circumstances, saying we could show up at no notice with our witnesses if a slot opened up. They phoned the day before to say they had a cancellation.

We got married at a registry office elsewhere and didn't have an appointment at our local office. Everything was done by post. Wedding was only booked 6 weeks before.

They don't tend to have many short ceremonies at registry offices as the demand isn't high, we had to do a Tues to Thursday morning only. Most people want the slightly longer ceremony. In fact, our registrar was lovely but wanted to give us much more 'wedding' than we wanted. Also lots of people will have booked over the summer months well in advance.

In fact, our registrar was lovely but wanted to give us much more 'wedding' than we wanted.

Yes, ours too! She seemed politely taken aback when we kept saying we just wanted the briefest, least personalised version of the ceremony, and we didn't have rings or photos or a wish for it to be anything other than a legally-binding exchange of vows and some paperwork.

Longer than 3 weeks for funeral here.

I really don't understand how it is so long to bury someone?

Oh it's horrendous here. For extreme cases (young child), I have seen people making a huge effort to organise things earlier, but otherwise you are lucky if you "only" wait 3 weeks. Makes the whole loss so much more painful

Anyway, as above, if you want a quick last-minute wedding, spring/summer is probably not the best choice.

No to Scotland. You need to give 13 weeks notice up here (Gretna might be slightly different though)

When my relative died recently the appointment to register her death (can't just call in) was over a week after we phoned. yhe funeral director wouldn't plan any date for the funeral until that had been done as the body could have been selected for one of the checks/reviews.

We booked our registry office two years before married and got the last time on the date we wanted.

My Dad died midway through November and the next available funeral date for cremation was day before Christmas Eve.

That type of marriage appointment at my local registry office is not available until Feb 2018!
The longer ceremony was available earlier but not really what we wanted.

Muslim religion requires burial within 24 hours apparently block booking is taking place for funeral arrangements.

Yes, some religions require quick burials, jewish too as well as muslim - it's all about what would happen in hot countries - bodies go off in hot deserts so it's best to get the burial (or hindu burning) done quickly.

In the NE we got registration of their deaths very very very quickly - within about 3 days and they were both buried a week after death - that was full church funerals and burial in grave (my father had one last spot in the plot his father bought in about 1910 for family burials - I have the 500 year lasting deed here still).

Shame you have to wait. But can I say how refreshing it is to see people not being angsty about their wedding, in terms of wanting a particular expensive venue, an exotic location, dancing bears and so on? Good for you.

I got an appointment to give notices about 10 days after I phoned in late March - and that was because Easter was in between, we gave notices on 5th April.
When calling to make that appointment I also booked the wedding ceremony for Wed 1st June which was the day we wanted, and I had a choice of 3 time slots.
This was last year.
In the event we we changed the time slot for the ceremony at the last minute (the day before) from late morning to early afternoon - due to DH being very very unwell. I think one of the registrars missed her lunch break in order to make that work for us.

I got an appointment within a couple of working days of phoning to register his death in March this year.

It's worth checking if there is more that one office which is 'local' to you. We could have given notices in any of the county offices - the main one had more appointment times and was more convenient to just pop there from work. We married in a smaller office, which is only open three days a week. I also registered his death there.

Wow didn't realize there were such long waiting times. We got married 4 weeks after we decided to get married. Just under a week for our pre wedding appointment, and then there was a 3 week wait for the actually wedding day. It was 9 years ago so I guess things have changed. Maybe less slots available these days? Or maybe there are different available slots depending what type of service you require

We rang for an appointment to register a death and were given an appointment 1 hr later - the registry office was a 45 minute drive away and we had to ring and cancel the vicar whom we had arranged to see that same afternoon! It was in a hospital though so not many weddings - although they do happen.

I think the number of registrars has been cut as it is a Local Authority service - and we all know the state of their finances! Office opening hours have been drastically reduced around here so if it is the same in your area, that will be the reason for the delay in getting an appointment. Lucky people don't often have shotgun weddings these days!