- Hello, welcome to today's episode
of the Wedding Lounge podcast.
Last week, we spoke in detail about church
of England wedding ceremonies.
And although there are lots of other religious
types of ceremonies out there,
we are gonna go into those in more details
in future episodes.
We wanted to touch on the legal side
and the other options for those who are not religious.
So the type of ceremony way you can get married
and the different options you have available to you.
- To legally get married,
you have a registrar for shape ceremony.
- This can be done in your local registry office.
- They range in style from sort of historic looking buildings
to more-- - Very pretty.
- Yeah, very pretty.
- No, not pretty, too.
- Very chemical, maybe.
- Sort of more see-looking buildings.
- So it all depends on where you are in the country
and what your local registry office is like.
You can also legally get married by a registrar at a venue.
So venues will have applied for licenses
so that couples can host their ceremony
and legally get married at the reception venue.
- I've had a couple of couples.
This year more so than in previous years
who want to get married at home,
but they've wanted to license their home
so that they can do it really at home.
- Yeah.
- And it's something that I have been asked about more and more,
which the minute isn't something you can,
well, you can't really do it
because if you turn around and try and license your home,
and you'll say, well, you're not using it as a wedding venue.
- Yeah.
- No, it's not going to happen.
But it's just, it's something that's definitely come up more.
- Yeah, it's interesting.
- Watch this space.
We will keep you updated as things unfold.
- So if you are not getting married at home
and you're getting married at a venue,
then you can legally get married there
and then have your reception there.
It used to be before COVID
that you had to have your ceremony under a structure.
So either inside or outside under a pergoda,
which just had to be some sort of structure,
but a permanent structure.
- Yes, you had to get married under a permanent structure.
- And most of the news,
unless they've sort of been established post-COVID
or have opened up a new area,
they will have some sort of structure.
That is their license area.
- Exactly, exactly.
Or obviously you can get married inside.
But since COVID, there's more flexibility.
So they have licensed areas
where there aren't necessarily structures,
which means you have a bit more freedom
than the few more options.
- Like nice woodland fits.
- Yes.
- And the only one that you can get married at.
- Definitely.
The benefit of getting married at a licensed venue
is obviously that you have everything in one venue.
You don't have to go and get legally married
on another day.
You invite your guests there.
You have the ceremony.
And you just go straight into the party.
- Yay, Liz, yeah.
- Turn the aisle and have a drink there
and you haven't got to move again.
- Exactly, exactly.
- With the registrar wedding, obviously,
you don't tend to meet the registrar in advance.
You book through your local registrar's apartment.
And you don't know who's gonna turn up on the day.
You meet with them sort of 10, 15 minutes separately.
So partner, one partner will meet with them first
and then the other partner will meet with them afterwards.
And you just have a short interview
before you go ahead of the ceremony.
- Just to make sure you're who you say you are.
And that obviously your intentions are free to marry.
- Yes, free to marry, yes, exactly.
- You normally meet the registrar in a separate room.
I would just say from experience,
sometimes the registrar can be quite particular
about the room in which you are having the interview.
Quite often they won't want there to be
any alcohol in the room.
Sometimes they don't even like coming to where you've got
ready because there might be makeup around
or old undergarments that you've taken off
to get into your wedding dress.
- It'd be a bit particularly about guest drinks before as well.
- Yes, illegal service.
So if you're planning on having a pre-wedding drink,
- Yeah, I think you need to just be careful
about the amount that is served.
- Definitely.
And we touched upon that in our food and drink episode.
But it's just definitely need to reiterate exactly.
So you'll have your short interview before the ceremony
and then they will conduct the ceremony
which usually lasts about half an hour.
You won't be allowed any religious elements
in your registrar ceremony at all.
So no hymns, no religious readings
and no religious rituals.
With a registrar ceremony, you don't have to have singing.
You will need to have witnesses.
You will need two witnesses to sign,
or witness you signing, sorry, register.
And you will often have a musical interlude at that point
for your guests, whether that's live music,
but you don't always have to have,
you wouldn't obviously have hymns,
but you don't have to have singing or readings
if you don't want it, can be quite short and sweet.
- Yeah, it's quite a nice way
if you're one of those people that just want to thank you,
and I want to get on with the party
when it's quite a good way to kind of get it done.
I mean, much like with the Church of Illinois
saying, giving notice, you still have to give notice
which you do through the website.
- Yes, I believe it's at least 31 days.
- Before hand, you have to give notice.
- But do check that out
because as we pointed out last episode,
as a wedding planners, we don't get involved
in the legal side.
We are not here.
You know, it's not our responsibility
to tell you what's legally right and wrong
because things change constantly.
It's your responsibility as the couple getting married
to make sure all the legal with the church related
or registrar related, all the legal stuff is in place
so that you can legally be married.
- Yes.
- We're not gonna be checking you out
to see whether you are free to be married.
That's your responsibility.
- So another brilliant option to have a really personal ceremony
is to have a celebrant ceremony.
Now, celebrant ceremony is not currently legal in England
as we're recording this in March 2025.
- It is something that has been on the cards.
I know for quite a long time.
So you need to watch that space
'cause that might change
and they might decide to license people
of venues which will, I think it'd be an amazing game change.
- It'll just open up the door
as you say to get married anywhere
but you want to get married at home legally.
- Yeah.
- They can do that.
I do believe in Scotland
but is currently the case.
It is not the same across England, Northern Ireland,
Wales and Scotland at the moment.
In some of the parts of the UK,
it is legal to have a celebrant led wedding
but it's definitely not in England right now
and as we're sat in Kent.
- I'm being afraid you can't pass out there.
- But I do believe that it is legal in Scotland.
As you said, watch this space
because celebrants all over the UK
are lobbying Parliament to get that changed
just to give couples the freedom
to get married how and where they want.
- The nice thing is you can include all sorts of aspects.
So if there's just one specific part of a religion
that means something to you personally
that you would like involved in your ceremony,
you can do this.
So I've got clients this year
that they really want to have their ceremony at home
but they're both Catholic.
So what they would really like to do
is bringing Catholic elements
to their at-home ceremony.
So it got beautifully customized ceremony
but with Catholic elements to it
to bring out that religious aspect
which is just so lovely that you can have that mix
that you can't have with a registrar
or how you've got to be somewhere around.
- Yes, and I think that's the key thing
with the celebrant led wedding
is just how much personalisation there is involved.
We haven't actually said what a celebrant is really.
- That would be helpful, we do.
- We keep talking about celebrant led weddings
but we haven't really outlined
what a celebrant actually is.
- It is a celebrant, yeah.
- So a celebrant is a person who is conducting
a non-religious ceremony.
Well, it's basically it, isn't it?
- Well, it's really good.
- I'd be doing on a human.
- Yeah, could you remind me of a dog?
- Why not, isn't it?
'Cause it's not legal, there's no rules around it.
I've been to weddings as a guest
where a host friend of the couple has taken the ceremony
but you do have celebrants who this is their business
and their job and as much as it would be lovely
having a friend take the ceremony,
if you do want it to be slightly resembling a ceremony,
it would be a really good idea to hire in a professional
but the benefit of hiring in a celebrant is
that celebrant gets to know you for months
before you're wedding day.
- Yeah, absolute storytellers.
I was selling the led weddings that I have planned for.
They are the ceremonies that have brought me to tears.
They are just so beautiful and personal
and around the couple.
I love a church being in a wedding and they do a sermon
which sometimes is based around the couple,
sometimes it's based around God.
You never quite know what we're gonna get
depends on the vicar was with a celebrant led service.
It's literally, it's you, your story,
it's your love letter to each other.
- Yeah, and you get to meet that person before.
So that person really feels a part of the occasion.
Like it's not just like a registrar who you've never met
and you don't know who it is conducting
like the most important ceremony.
And there's such a wide range of celebrants out there
from the Jiggen's to quite quirky to...
- Totally, there's a unique story.
- Yes, unique people.
Finding the right celebrant for you is important.
- It's a person, yeah.
- But there are so many out there
and there's so many different options
that can suit you and your style like hand-casting.
- I had someone told me once about a couple
who I think is Alex Hilda, the local celebrant.
She told me about a couple who loved,
or they vowed to always like on a Friday night
or something, have wine and chocolate at the end of the week
to de-stress.
So they like exchanged chocolate and wine in the ceremony
'cause you can just do what you like.
But yeah, or things like hand-fasting, where ribbons,
and you can get friends to come and tie ribbons
around your hands.
So you're literally physically tied together.
- Yeah, and that's really nice
to you got children's work.
So you can get the children involved
and you can all tie the knots together.
- Yeah, I mean, we could literally tie the knots together.
Did we, you know, celebrant-led weddings
be anything you wanted to be my first client?
- So many.
- Oh, yes, sound ceremony.
- When you mix the fans, so you become one.
- Yeah.
- My first client was called Plan for Pepper Army,
I think I've touched upon this before.
It was he our exercise for them,
but they had a celebrant-led wedding.
Feeling because we found the couple so last minute,
we didn't actually have time to give notice
to make it a legal one.
So they had to go into the legal bit of the day.
But we had celebrant-led wedding.
They had a friend officiate the ceremony.
And it was just totally unique to them.
It was totally off the wall.
We obviously had people robbing him of the hoover to him.
- So dressed in a pack of army costume.
- Someone was dressed as a pepper army costume.
And, you know, when they said sort of does anyone,
you know, they kind of made the point
to making a joke about does anyone here know a reason why,
and you know, the pepper army came in,
whereas obviously in a legal ceremony,
that is just not funny.
That is not funny.
And that they will actually just stop the service
and not carry on with the wedding.
- Yeah.
- So, you know, a celebrant-led ceremony,
you can have a bit more fun with things.
You can involve people.
You can, you can sing him.
- You can drink him.
- You can drink that short.
- I'm talking about singing.
You'll never just, you know,
so it revolves around before.
- Yeah, you could give everyone a shot
to that, as you say, exchange the ring.
So you go.
- Yeah.
- But you can also write your own files
and make it totally personal.
- Yeah.
- You know, much like exchanging chocolate
and red wine.
- Red wine, I can say all the things that you want.
Like, it can be your real love letter to your partner.
- Yeah.
- And just be that wholesome moment.
- I think it's really hard for us to actually tell you
what a celebrant-led wedding is
because opportunities are endless.
Like, you literally could find a celebrant
who was happy to do whatever you want
and do it however you want.
Whether that would change slightly
if it does become legal, I don't know.
- Yeah.
- I don't know whether there would be some restrictions
on it.
Or we just don't know how that will look
when, you know, when or if it comes into play.
But you could honestly have anything.
So, you know, they're really for the couple
who want something unique, aren't religious.
They don't want to just get married in a registrar's office.
You do obviously need to have the legal ceremony as well.
- Yeah, otherwise you are not legally married.
- No.
So you could do that rarely happens the morning of.
I think most people go a couple of days before
or the day before.
So it's a chance to either have different group of people
or a smaller group of people at the legal ceremony.
Well, for a nice dinner afterwards.
Have one party and then have the actual ceremony.
- Yeah.
We make an occasion now.
- Yeah.
- I mean, dare I say it a bit like
very American rehearsal dinner.
- Yes.
- But it's a very popular tradition over there
to go and everyone has a rehearsal dinner
the night before you can use that opportunity.
You would legal ceremony followed by a nice meal.
- Yeah.
- Just celebrate with your bridal parties
in your immediate family.
- Immediate family.
Yeah, just a smaller group.
- Yeah.
- You want a different day that means something to you.
- Exactly.
So you must get legally married
when you're having a celebrant led wedding as well.
It's not legal at the moment in England.
Natasha, what would be your tip
for couples who are possibly looking
to bring together few different cultures?
If maybe they're thinking celebrant led ceremony
isn't what they want.
They want something maybe a bit more
or they don't want to do the legal separately.
They want they want a bit more of a legal.
- Yeah.
I mean, you could have multiple ceremonies.
- Yeah.
- You can have multiple ceremonies over multiple days
all in one go.
Like you could do.
So one couple had a churchmate and bride
and a Jewish groom.
Not that he was particularly Jewish,
but his family was family religious.
So they did an legal registry office service
and then the bride side and obviously the groom went
and had a blessing in a church.
So not the legal service which was there for her
and then they had the reception afterwards.
So you could choose to do that in any which way.
You could also, it's not necessarily legal,
you could get an efficient from each religion
to come along to perform your ceremony together
and to blend the cultures.
Multi-Sermonage, you definitely have to have one.
To have one that's legal and the other one obviously can't,
but most, if it's religion and blending religions
and appeasing both families,
then having ceremonies both sides,
one of the blessings is definitely the way that I would go.
- Definitely and I think you touched on something
really key there about families
because we would always advocate for the couple.
It's their day, it's their marriage.
It should be about them.
When it comes to the ceremony
and especially the religion is involved or culture,
there are certain things that you sort of feel
like you have to do for your families.
And I think having numerous celebrations and blessings
is a good way to incorporate that
and to still hopefully get what you guys want as a couple.
- Exactly.
- Brilliant.
So more family politics next week.
- You can be delving to a seating plow.
- Oh, so the make or break of every couple.
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So enjoy your week off from us and much more supply
ready for next Tuesday, yeah.
See you then. Bye!