Registry office wedding experiences

[Weddingname457]

We want to go to our local registry office and have a very low key wedding. Well really we don’t want the wedding just the legal bit. Has anyone done this and regretted it or felt it was the best thing?

We have family & friends all over the country/in other countries and we’d want to do a big celebration at some point but we want to get married (the legal bit) sooner rather than later. It also means we probably would have witnesses who weren’t family or friends- how have people gone about this?

We were meant to have a statutory ceremony in September a few days before our “wedding” with a celebrant. We’re now getting married in 9 days time in a small legal ceremony with 10 guests and a meal afterwards for personal reasons.

Regrets isn’t the right word, I’m very happy I’m marrying my partner and shifting to a small legal ceremony was the right choice in our situation but…the difference in cost is significant. If you’d like to get married sooner rather than later, go for a statutory ceremony and save your money for a big party at a later date because big parties and even small ceremonies with a meal rack up very quickly!!

Registry office for us, four guests (two of whom were the witnesses), smart clothes, but not 'weddingy', and then lovely long champagne lunch afterwards, and then we spent the wedding night in a posh hotel. The registry office was very smart, huge flower displays and a marble staircase and landing for the photos. No regrets at all.

We had a photographer, who brought a friend, they were our witnesses

How did you tell your parents? We really are not looking at the wedding day as a big day, we have lived together for years and really we are just signing a piece of paper. However I feel our parents will be upset. It seems strange how they’d be less upset if we just never got married, than if they weren’t there on the day.

it’s not that I don’t want them there, it’s just then a layer of planning I don’t want (especially with some living abroad). I know they’d also expect to stay at ours and I particularly don’t want that on our wedding week.

DH and I did it nearly 20 years ago now. We went to the registry with my parents as witnesses. (His parents were overseas). We just wanted the legal bits and this is the right choice for us. No regrets at all.

@Weddingname457 both our parents understood we didn't want a wedding. You were already living together. I think you just tell them you went and registered? My dad is a lawyer and he is the one who always told me how important the legal side of this is.

Yes I think if I word it like that, it sounds less like we were excluding anyone! I find it so difficult that it’s just a legal yet it can upset people when you don’t ask them to join you for it.

Register office ceremonies can be lovely as they are intimate - yes the room may be basic but the actual location overall can be lovely with gardens etc.

Basic register office costs £56 +'£12:50 certificate and £84!for legal notices

£152:50! Job done

10 years ago and no regrets at all here. Did dress up and booked a photographer for a couple of hours. I'm really glad I did that, but that's because there's a parent and a sibling that are no longer with us. We just had immediate family.

Got married 15 years ago, Monday afternoon at a Register Office. Wore a cream satin knee length dress and had a wedding photographer. Had 4 friends there, no family.

Best day of my life.

We had a registry office civil partnership during COVID. V small number of immediate family guests. I was never into big fruffy weddings so didn't care what the ceremony room looked like, but the room/building was actually really nice, fresh flowers, fancy chairs etc. We took some photos and wore nice outfits (but not typical wedding gear). No regrets. Plus it was super cheap and involved zero stress.

Fun fact and outing for anyone who knows me, but I actually planned a fancy child free break, and then thought maybe we should try to get the civil partnership done too. So we effectively booked the honeymoon before the ceremony! All arranged within a 3 week period, which is totally doable if you don't have grand plans with outfits, guest lists, menus, colour schemes, napkins etc.

We were not bothered about a big wedding, and my parents said "Do you want the money towards a wedding or a house"? We chose the house option, and married in the register office two days before Christmas so it sort of got buried in all the hoo ha of the festive season.

Never regretted it for a moment, just family attended and they took a few photos. Still happily married 46 years later!

We did it with 6 people there. Never ever regretted it. We wanted to be married and we weren’t interested in a party. We had no money anyway. They came back to us for champagne (DS bought it) and cake (I made it).

I work near a registrar office and couples arrive in anything from jeans, shorts in summer, to full morning suits and ball gown dresses.
Grabbing witnesses off the street can be stressful and although we are asked we aren't allowed to act as witnesses as we have our day job to do. I've often seem MNers volunteer to help though, so you could try asking here.

I am engaged and we have just booked a registry office wedding for Sat 1st Nov this year, followed by a meal in a nice venue, followed by going back to our house. We do not want a big 'do' - we want to be legally married and that's it. I am going to have my hair done, wear a dress I can wear again, have flowers, no photographer - we have ten guests allowed, and back at the house we will have nibbles, drink, a fire in the garden and people can float off / put PJs on / watch TV / whatever they like once it is done, while I hold hands with my new husband and dance with him. I can't wait.