No record of church wedding at registry office?

[ChefsKisser]

Posting for traffic

We got married at a C of E church in England in 2019. We got a copy of the wedding certificate hand written and were told the vicar sends a copy to the registry office- fine.

We are now moving abroad and have been told by a notary we need an official copy from the General Registry Office of the wedding. I ordered a copy online and it bounced back saying no record on GRO and to check with local registry office. I contacted the local county registry office who have no record and advised to contact GRO. I emailed the church email address to check exactly where the certificates are sent for formal registry to see if perhaps it was a different locality (I’m sure it won’t be as the website says the should get send to the one I contacted).

So…are we not married?! Is it not official in UK law? I’m really stressed as we need this document and it’s been 6 bloody years what if we had died would any of our legal stuff be in place as a married couple? We do have a wedding cert but only the church copy and I never needed another one. I’m going to ring the local registry office on Monday first thing but is there anything else I need to/can do?

You are legally married but seems like a mess up by the church or by registry office You would have signed a register so church should have a record.

@rose69 thank you yes I assume they didn’t send a copy to the registry office. I’m hoping I’ll be able to take my marriage certificate to the registry office and get them to officiate it 6 years later (!?). I’m hoping I don’t have to get the church to do it because they haven’t replied already for 2 weeks and it all seems very sloooow….

Go to the church and request an appointment with the vicar. I deal with vicars often as part of my role and honestly, you’ll be waiting until next Christmas for an email reply!

Vicars are no lomger allowed to issue marriage certificates, but if they still have one copy of the register you could ask to see it.

I wonder if the name has been misspelt in the indexes.

Haha @CheddarCheeseAndCrispSandwich i agree but the vicar covers a few church’s so I wouldn’t know when to go! Perhaps tomorrow I can google when a service is and accost them at the end? Not sure if that’s fair or appropriate though!
@OccasionalHope i don’t want to see the entry I want it to be on the official government records not just the local church ledger!

If you see it you can confirm it's there...

@OccasionalHope ah I see well that’s true. It better be bloody there!

The church is likely to have an office with a paid administrator, probably covering a group of churches. I would go to them in the first place rather than the vicar or a church warden. In my experience they are better at responding to emails.

https://www.achurchnearyou.com Is a good starting point for finding the best contact email. You might even be able to go in and chat to them.

It's probably under a mis-spelling, when our marriage was entered into the GRO, they changed every single O to an A. So surname and address were both wrong, as well as all the other details, so almost impossible to search. A nice lady at the GRO spent a long while searching, found it, then I had to get the vicar to send a photocopy of the original to the GRO to get it amended. It is not easy! But don't despair, it's common.

There should be a phone number for the vicar somewhere.

Hi I’m hoping it’s something like this. I’ll ring the local registrar on Monday and see if I can sort it. Thanks for the advice!

Hope you get it sorted
as long as you signed the register there will be a record and you are officially married there will just have been an admin cock-up

When I got married (2017) we ordered spare certificates from the (Catholic) church we married in. The book only gets sent to the registry office when it’s full, apparently. Is there any chance it hasn’t been sent at all yet? Is it a small church?

if that’s inaccurate I have no idea what the church we married in was up to!🙈

They changed the law in 2021 so all existing registers should have been handed in then (at least one of the two sets. The other copy can remain with the parish for eventual deposit at the county archives.)

Hi - just wondering if you had any resolution to this, as I’m in a very similar situation! Applied to GRO for copies of our 2018 wedding and no record could be found!!!