I'm a Wedding Registrar. Here are my top 10 tips you should know/I get asked most about.

[kardashianklone]

1. Common law marriage is NOT a thing in this country (UK). It may be in other countries, but you have no rights for being in a relationship for any length of time in this country. If you want legal protection, you need to be married. This is relevant particular in the case of shared assets (like property), or if you have kids, or if one of you dies without a will.
2. Divorce is considerably more expensive that a wedding. If you have any doubts at all about marrying your partner, don't. It's a lot more costly to get a divorce than it is to cancel a wedding.
3. You will sign the marriage certificate with the name you walked in with. The point is to show that one single person is marrying another single person. You (usually) won't change your surname (if you wish to) until AFTER the wedding and its a separate process. So if you are (for example) Miss Jane Smith marrying Mr Bob Jones, you will sign as Miss Jane Smith, even if later you plan to change your name to Mrs Jane Jones.
4. If you have a veil, or a dress that touches the floor, both will get filthy before you get to me at the end of the aisle. Taxi floors, steps, outside gravel, marble stair cases- it will pick up every tiny leaf and piece of fluff and stray piece of confetti going and will end up dirty.
5. As a side note, if you choose to have a face covering veil that you are expecting your future spouse to lift over your head, for the love of God, practice it with them. I don't know why, but every spouse has shown to be incompetent at lifting the veil nicely and draping it prettily down the back, which means either a bridesmaid or mother has to spring forward and faff around with it.
6. Which reminds me, every single father of the bride/groom I've ever know, has always, without fail, stepped on the bride's dress and veil, and it some cases, ripped them. I would prep them in advance to watch out for it. The number of brides who have had some thoughtless man's clodhopper imprinted on their elegant dress is innumerate.
7. If you want to have young kids at the wedding, please be mindful that babies either tend to wake up during the ultra quiet bits when you make your vows, OR when the clapping and cheering starts. Have the parents/guardians of children sit near a door so they can make a swift exit if screaming starts.
8. You get one witness each. Think about who you want BEFORE you get married as the witness must be present for the entire duration of the ceremony, understand English, and be able to hear the legal words being said. If they leave half way through to comfort a screaming child or take a phone call, they can not be a witness and someone else will need to be chosen.
9. If you want to have animals play an active part in the ceremony, for example be a ring bearer- this is a cute idea but the execution is always awkward. The animal usually gets over excited, and there is an awkward long pause whilst someone tries to wrestle the ring off the collar. Animals are welcome (depending on the venue) but you are responsible for cleaning up after it, and someone must be looking after it at all times.
10. You will not have to remember any legal vows off by heart. You will repeat word by word after the registrar. If you want to add personal vows, have them written down on a card or bit of paper. Your registrar can look after them for you if needed.

Are there any questions you would like to ask?

@FrillyGoatFluff Your nan sounds wonderful! Just like in most jobs, everyone has their own style- but I can definitely tell if a registrar is from own borough over another and if they are more ….’old school’ than another. It always shows up in interesting tiny details, like words they might use, or phrases, or how they conduct one ceremony over another. There’s a thing right now about saying ‘ladies and gentlemen’ as it’s not as inclusive as saying ‘friends and family’ and that makes it very clear where that registrar is from, how much training they have had etc.

Just to say, this isn't the case in Scotland. In Scotland you will inherit from a CP automatically without a will.

That Pearce Legal link suggests that civil partners don't automatically inherit on intestacy but I think it's wrong.
The UK government Intestacy algorithm makes no distinction between married couples and civil partners.
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will/y

Obviously every adult should have a will but I'm pretty sure that civil partners inherit on intestacy in England/Wales as if they were married.

For people that have small intimate ceremonies what do they do after?

@knotornot totally depends on the registry office you choose. Some will offer basic packages, others will let you get more elaborate (like adding a stone or sand ceremony). Very basic is no readings, no ring exchange, just saying the legal words with 2 witnesses. Basic/standard would be music for the entrance, certificate signing and exit, ring exchange, 2x readings. All depends on what packages that borough offers. It can get more elaborate but fundamentally if it’s in the registry office, you are going to pay for the hire of the room, which is time limited.

@knotornot for after the ceremony, once they leave the registry office, I don’t know what people do, but anecdotally, a meal or afternoon tea seems popular.

a family member recently got married and told me that both participants were interviewed seperately in order to check this, it was routine and applied to everyone, a good practice I thought, and this was in a not very diverse city

@newtlover yes- sometimes different boroughs do it differently. Quite often, we ask the bride and groom if they would like to be interviewed together separately or together. If they choose to be interviewed together, but red flags are raised, we will then instigate separate interviews.

Please note there are additional details if you marry in church - I organise church weddings and the amount of people who today think it is just like a hotel drive me a bit mad - you can't write your own vows in church, you can't have a Sunday morning wedding we have scheduled services (yes this request was just before Christmas, they were not understanding when I said we didn't do Sunday weddings) and no the 19th century organ isn't movable!

OP, I work with DV survivors and many would not be able to request separate interviews and it would not be at all obvious that there was coercion. Midwives always ensure they have at least 1 contact with a pregnant woman alone, so she can disclose any abuse (even then, sadly she may not be able to do so but at least a seed has been sown)- so I would respectfully suggest that there may be no red flags, but there may still be coercion.
(of course there may be obvious red flags, I realise that)

I also organise church weddings!
One thing that has significantly changed is that vicars can no longer issue Marriage Certificates. We fill in a legal form which is signed at the service (along with 'dummy' registers) and take it to the council registrar office. They then digitalise the information. If you want certificates they have to be ordered on line from that office direct.
It takes a few days.
This has taken many by surprise (even though I repeat it a lot in all my communications with couples!!)

To get married in the church of England a couple has to undertake a Marriage Preparation session which does talk about relationships/ resolving conflict/ communication etc. Many find this very useful. We run these sessions with a few couples in and get very good feedback.

A vicar can organise an emergency wedding (for instance in case of terminal illness etc) quite quickly via special licence. We have done it in less than 5 days before now.

Late with a question - but since learning that your witnesses can be literal strangers pulled off the street, I’ve wondered what purpose having witnesses actually serves? If they don’t know the marrying couple then they can’t actually answer the “does anyone present know of any reason why these two people are not free to marry?”; and as they don’t have to show ID or give contact details, it’s not as if they could ever be tracked down for testimony if the bride or groom wanted the marriage annulled on the grounds of coercion etc.

@ComtesseDeSpair great question! To start with the question ‘does any person here present know of any lawful reason as to why X and X should not be joined in marriage’ is asked of all the guests present, not the witnesses. And for that matter, that sentence does not have to be included, you can choose to have a script with out it. It’s not legal wording. (And obviously I’m talking about civil marriages here, not religious ones).The job of the witnesses is to literally WITNESS the marriage. Which means the witnesses need to be over 18, understand English and be present for the whole ceremony. This is just to make sure that they fulfil the legal requirement of having 2 witnesses. The witnesses are not asked in what capacity they know the couple, nor are they asked if they know of any legal reason why they should not be married. Witnesses are asked to sign their name and write their name. If you get them off the street, that’s your business. Most people don’t, I’ve only ever had one wedding where that happened.

Check the capacity of the register office before planning the guest list. A local one is barely big enough for 2 parents and a pram.

Thank you so much, this thread has been so interesting!

Can you explain a bit more about how personalised vows work, and what makes ‘good’ personal vows? I cry at the drop of a hat but FH is quite romantic and great with words so a bit worried about how that part of the ceremony is going to turn out!

Are personal vows more like some words we read to each other before we make the official vows? Or can all vows be personalised?

Thanks - from a nervous September 2024 bride!

Ok so to start with the legal vows. You will have to repeat, after the registrar, the legal vows, which is about a sentence's worth of words. Saying these vows is what makes you actually married, so you can't alter those. If you wish (you don't have to), you can add personal vows, which usually come after the legal bit. DISCLAIMER- check with your registrar. Some may not allow this, depending on the type of wedding you are having.

Having heard approx. 70 billion personal vows, these are my (private) thoughts on adding in personal vows.

Make it short and sweet. The time for eloquent, long, meandering witterings is after the ceremony, during the speeches. You have a limited time that your money buys for a ceremony (pre interviews, ceremony, readings, signing of the marriage schedule, witness signing, photographs), don't waste it with someone yakking on about how they met their one true beloved. Save that for the dinner speeches.

If you are going to have personal vows, write them down on a bit of card. When people go 'off piste' and try to speak from the heart, nerves get the better of them and it turns into a meandering soliloquy that people start shuffling and coughing through.

Tell the groom to have tissues in his pocket- I don't know why men never think of this but they never do. If the bride uses tissues, think about where are you going to put the snotty tissues afterwards. The registrar doesn't want them. Can you give them to someone else to put in a pocket?

I personally don't love personal vows that seem....sexist. I know it's not my business, and that it's between the couple getting married, but I cringe when I hear 'I promise not to nag you about football and always make you a protein smoothie and let you have a lie in on Sundays'. Also, and trust me on this, people will judge you on the vows you make. So you make think you are making a cute 'in-joke' but (like a couple I recently had) when the groom says 'I promise not to go mad when you use my credit card to go shopping' and she says 'I promise to give you a home cooked meal every day', I feel like it says quite a lot about that relationship. Weirdly, I've seen a trend where couples air their arguments in the vows, like 'I promise not to nag you about leaving your rugby kit on the bathroom floor for a week'. Don't do that. Don't promise what you won't do, state what you will do.

The best vows are the short, sweet and from the heart ones. Also PRACTICE saying them out loud and time yourself doing it. If they are more than a couple of minutes long, shorten them. I had a wedding recently where the groom pulled out 4 pieces of typed A4 paper of personal vows and the other registrar and I were like.....'oh lord, that's really going to mess with the timings of this wedding'. Then it turned out he wanted to translate them into another language and repeat them all over again. That is something that should have been saved for dinner speeches. I asked him how long he thought it would take to say and he clearly hadn't practised as said 'oh, um, 5 mins'. NO. 20 minutes later he was still banging on. We had to cut some of the ceremony and a reading to make sure they were actually legally married in the time allotted.

Tbh, you don't NEED personal vows. But if you want them, I'd say less than 2 or 3 mins, something from the heart, nothing too 'revealing' (like the bride that promised steak and blow job saturday, ugh), something that you will mean, and something that won't be held over your head in the future ('you promised me a protein smoothie every morning'). Side bar, one groom once said he would promise not to make fun of her belly unless she put on more weight. Bride looked like she was going to cry. But they'd already done the legal bits so technically were already married- too late to back out now.

Some couples share their vows with each other ahead of time, others don't. What I have noticed is that the couples that don't communicate it ahead of time have wildly differing lengths of vows as a result. Like one person has written two sides of A4 and the other has written a paragraph, and then the length of time it takes to say, and the difference between that, sort of hangs in the air like a 'ohh....you weren't in sync and now it's a bit awkward that everyone's noticed'.

If you get really stuck you can google suggested personal vows and tweak them. If you want to keep it safe, just do the legal vows and write something nice for after the ceremony that can be more in depth. If you do want to include something personal, have a practice, write them well in advance, and remember that it's not just your partner who will be hearing them.

Honestly, steak and blow job saturday scarred me a bit. Watching the guests faces' as she said that, I wanted to drop through the floor. And it was recorded, so that shit is on tape forever. Awks.