As outlined in this previous post, having a wedding with a celebrant provides you with the freedom to plan a ceremony which is unique to you in a location and at a time of your choosing. With a celebrant, you can have a truly personalised ceremony which reflects your personalities and your relationship. The emotions you feel at this point in your journey together can be carefully and exquisitely captured and shared with your family and friends.
It is worth keeping in mind when planning with your celebrant that, in England, a wedding is the ceremony that takes place on a specific day at a specific time whilst a marriage is a legally, socially, and sometimes religiously or spiritually bound, long-term relationship.

At the time of writing, though they are the best way to have a ceremony which is personal to you both, celebrant-led ceremonies are not yet legally recognised in England and Wales. If you wish your wedding to become a legally recognised marriage or civil partnership you’ll need to do the paperwork separately.
The great thing is that, if you know what you're doing, this is relatively easy and, if you were to work with me, it would be something I can help you with.
The legal steps.
Step One: Giving Notice to Marry
The first step you currently need to take is to give your Registrar notice that you intend to marry. You should try and make arrangements with them for the date and time of your registration as soon as possible though the date itself could be either on the morning of, or a day or so before, your wedding ceremony.
Marriage notices must be submitted within 12 months prior to your wedding date. The registrar requires sufficient time to verify that both parties are legally eligible to marry each other.
It's recommended that submitting your notice take place around eight weeks before your legal registration date. However, if either of you has previously been married or in a civil partnership, your should submit your notice 10 weeks beforehand.
While the legal minimum notice period is 28 days before your intended wedding date, leaving it this late can risk delays and could force you to postpone your ceremony.
The Registrar General may only permit marriages with less than 28 days' notice in exceptional circumstances.
Step Two: Deciding How to Marry
You essentially have a decision to make between two options here - though some councils split the second option into multiple different choices as they have a range of venues and rooms available to them.
Your choice is between:
A simple statutory registration of marriage with just the two of you and two witnesses.
A slightly fancier affair in one of the council's own rooms at their venues.
Every council is expected to provide the first of these two options. However, partly because it's substantially cheaper as they can make more money promoting their own venues, some councils seem to hide the details of this simpler approach.
The current cost of the first, simple marriage option in Wiltshire (January 2025) is £42 for the notice of marriage, £60 reservation fee and £56 for the statutory marriage. This is a total of £158.
For the second option, a slightly fancier version in one of the council's rooms, the total cost including giving notice and reservation fee currently ranges from £302 to £597 dependent on the size of the venue.
The legal part takes around 15-20 minutes in your local registry office with your two witnesses and the registrar will prepare your legal Marriage Certificate for you at this point.

In essence, what you need to decide here is how important it is that you have more than two other people seeing you sign your legal document and therefore how much your willing to spend on this.
Step Three: Deciding When to Marry
The timing of your legal marriage can be before or after your wedding ceremony. Most people decide to have the marriage before so that they are legally married prior to their personalised ceremony.
Some couples decide to get married and have their celebrant led ceremony on the same day.
If you choose this option, then it is much more expensive if you aim to arrange for the registrar to attend a licensed venue as the fees are much higher. Some registrars are also reluctant to attend if they know that a celebrant will be leading the ceremony. A smoother option is to arrange for your legal marriage to take place in the morning at the registry office and for your wedding ceremony to occur later on in the day at your chosen venue.
It is, of course, also possible to decide not to have your relationship legally recognised in marriage and simply have a wedding ceremony. You need to be aware that, were you to do this, you would not be legally married even though you had had a wedding.
Further support
To support you further, below are some useful links which relate to the legal aspects of getting married:
If you'd like to book a discovery call with me, just click here: This Moment
Alternatively, email me at nick.wells@thismoment.org.uk
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