Getting Married (England)

Hi
28 days is the minimum . The registrar need to confirm the couple are eligible to marry and it is recommended you should give them even more time, up to 12 months, in advance . There is provision to do things quicker in exceptional circumstances. I don't know what the circumstance need to be , but I guess it is possible for your character to persuade the registrar to grant a special licence ?

Don't know about forgoing the waiting period, but wasn't Gretna Green, just across the border in Scotland, the traditional place for the English to run off to for a quickie marriage? (Got this info from historical romances, and detective stories, so wait for verification from someone with accurate knowledge, and I don't know how the time period of your story would affect this.)

I was going to suggest Scotland, but I thought that was because the age of consent was different. In the UK you can get married at 16 with parents' consent but not until 18 without parents' consent, but in Scotland it's just a flat 16, so couples where one was 16 or 17 who wanted to marry without parental consent went to Scotland. There are other scenarios where people went to Scotland to get married but I can't remember what they are.

The above info may well be out of date by now.

Trying to bribe public officials is a) difficult and b) illegal, with significant jail terms. I mean you could in theory bribe a public official to do anything but it would be considered a criminal act, not a favour for a friend.

Does it have to be a legal wedding? You can have a religious only ceremony without giving any notice at all. You won't get the legal paperwork but you'd still get a wedding. Mainstream churches won't do that but plenty of other people do. It used to be the case that only churches and registry offices (possibly synagogues?) could do legal weddings. People from other religions would do their own weddings on their own terms and then people would later sort out the legal paperwork with the most basic registry office wedding, but would consider themselves married when they did the religious ceremony. I know that some masjids/mosques would do weddings at short notice, but it's only recently that masjids/mosques have been allowed to do the legal side of the weddings. (My ex partner is a Muslim so this isn't just speculation.) The limitation with this is that religious establishments generally only provide these services for members. Like if you wanted a quick Islamic wedding, you'd have to convert to Islam first, but you will find imams willing to do this, as long as you're sincere in your desire to become Muslim and have a Muslim wedding. That probably won't help your characters if they're not Muslims or don't want to become Muslim, but it's an example of how non-legal religious only weddings aren't exactly rare. Your characters may find some small, liberal-minded church that will do a non-legal wedding, although they may call it "blessing ceremony"* - I know the Unitarians used to do this for gay couples before gay marriage was legal. The minister will make it very clear that it's not going to come with the legal paperwork.

*they don't have to call it that, they can call it a wedding if they want.

Some of the above may have changed since the law changed to allow a wider variety of places and people to conduct legal weddings.

The Gretna Green special case went away a long time back, is my understanding. However, the old forge at Gretna Green, where a lot of weddings happened, is now a fancy wedding venue where you'd have to book a long time in advance.
What about a wedding package abroad? Not sure how they work but do know people who flew off to a beach wedding in Greece. Came as a package.

A search of "quickie marriages Europe" produces some interesting results including http://www.dailystar.co.uk/travel-n...10-places-to-go-for-a-quickie-wedding-that-is

Jim Clark-Dawe

Try the 24 hr wait in Gibraltar. That's probably the best you'll find. The marriages in Gretna Green were common law marriages in which the parties declared their marriage to each other. Alas, the desire to limit individual liberties has eliminated common law marriage in the UK as well as most of the U.S.A. and nmost other countries.

Orianna2000 said:

Hmm. This is disappointing. I really wanted them to be able to get married on impulse, right away. Drat!

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24 hours is pretty impulsive. Have them take a train, and it will take that long to get there.

Unless you're in Nevada, you can't get married on the spur of the moment. You've got to travel to wherever it is you're going to try.

But if you really want to do this, here's an approach. A boat or ship with a home port in Florida is considered to be Florida territory upon reaching the high seas, and a licensed official from Florida can perform a wedding on a boat. So step 1 is you need someone from Florida that crossed the Atlantic and is in a port in Florida.

We'll make this guy the father of a Clerk of Courts in Florida. Normally you have to appear in person to get a marriage license, but the Clerk made his or her father a deputy clerk at some point. Therefore, with a bit of a stretch, the father can work as the person personally appearing to get a marriage license. Dad for some reason has some blank marriage licenses. In Florida, a marriage license is issued immediately, and you can get married as soon as you have the license.

It seems unlikely, but is doable.

The other approach is to do the ceremony and deal with the paperwork afterwards. Marriage is invalid until the paperwork can be filed, but this approach has been done.

Jim Clark-Dawe

Orianna2000 said:

I was thinking that maybe they could travel to Gibraltar or wherever, but he wouldn't tell her where they're going. Can he fax the paperwork ahead of time, before they leave, so they can get married as soon as they arrive?

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Maybe, but it's hard to tell immediately. You would have to send in a copy of the hotel bill to prove that you were staying in Gibraltar for at least one night.
http://www.gibraltar.gov.gi/new/marriages-civil-partnerships

Probably only possible to have a (kind of) legal marriage by doing some forging of her signature/tricking her into signing a form. Does it have to be the day of legal signing, or can he not have the ceremony in front of family and friends and also have all the legal forms ready to be signed and sent off that very day? It does prove that he loves his fiancee and really does want to marry her.

Elopements don't seem very popular of late, but I've heard of Gibraltar and St Lucia being used by folks.

(Also, if anyone has some budget UK wedding advice, I'm all ears... arranging a cheap Scottish wedding is harder than I ever expected!)

King Neptune said:

Try the 24 hr wait in Gibraltar. That's probably the best you'll find. The marriages in Gretna Green were common law marriages in which the parties declared their marriage to each other. Alas, the desire to limit individual liberties has eliminated common law marriage in the UK as well as most of the U.S.A. and most other countries.

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"Common law marriage" has never been a thing in the England, so this is bad info.

I can't think of a single recent incident where individual "liberties" around marriage have been limited in the UK. On the contrary, with the Civil Partnership Act and same-sex marriage being legalised, UK marriage rights are more equal than they've ever been.

Orianna2000 said:

I'm so tempted to just say that the guy has very high connections in the government, so they'll let him bend the rules. But I'd rather try and work this out legally, first.

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That would ring really false to me. I just can't imagine it -- government departments are so separate, and no amount of rank can really beat the queues. Nothing ever beats the queues!

Orianna2000 said:

Thanks for that link, Neptune.

Cameron, they don't have much in the way of family/friends. It's going to be a tiny, private ceremony. I was planning for only one friend to be in attendance, maybe two, depending on where the wedding takes place.

I'm so tempted to just say that the guy has very high connections in the government, so they'll let him bend the rules. But I'd rather try and work this out legally, first.

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I have a friend who was an advisor to our Prime Minister, who wanted to get married very quickly, who couldn't find anyone to bend the rules for him. It might be possible--for example, if someone has a terminal illness--but it would be a lot of hard work, and both parties to the wedding would almost certainly need to be involved.

I suppose I could say he has connections in Gibraltar who would let him fax the documents over ahead of time. Not as convenient as having them get married in the UK, but it could work. Maybe. Hmmm.

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I'm pretty sure that when I got married both I and my husband-to-be had to sign paperwork required to arrange the wedding. If you're getting the groom to do all this without her knowledge or consent, I think you're going to find it difficult to make it work.

EMaree said:

(Also, if anyone has some budget UK wedding advice, I'm all ears... arranging a cheap Scottish wedding is harder than I ever expected!)

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Don't tell anyone you're getting married. Invite two friends at the very last minute, to act as your witnesses. Wear clothes you already own. Don't have a big party, just go out for dinner with your close friends afterwards.

It sounds quite dour and grim but that's how I got married, and it was intimate, lovely and extremely cheap.

It was thirty years ago, but I also remember having to get a blood test. I think that's since been removed as a requirement, though.

Yeah sorry, it can't be done. The English system is so complicated and split into multiple departments I don't think you'd even be able to figure out who you needed to bribe, much less get away with it if you tried.

Notices of marriage are public (in Scotland, anyway, and I expect in the other countries of the UK) to make sure that objections to the marriage can be raised, if one partner is already married, for example. The 28 day notice period (it can be up to 3 months, but 28 days is the minimum) is not negotiable and the notices of marriage are put up at the local registry office, regardless of where the marriage itself will take place. That's also why banns are read in church - to give public notice of the intended marriage. Both parties have to fill out the paperwork and there are separate forms to be completed by each half of the couple (in Scotland, anyhow) to ensure one party is not being forced into the marriage, so a man couldn't organise a legal wedding without his intended wife's knowledge or consent, or vice versa, unless he forged the paperwork (which is a great plot point but maybe not the ideal basis for a long and trusting marriage). A marriage is a public ceremony - I was a guest at (a civil) one on a boat on Loch Katrine and the boat had to be moored with the gangplank down before and during the ceremony so that anyone could come in and object if they knew the marriage was not legal. Only after the vows were exchanged and the paperwork signed could we set sail. There aren't any blood tests or medical checks.

There are extra rules (which differ slightly between Scotland and England) about what you need to do if you're not a UK resident but marrying in the UK, so your American will have to abide by those too.

General information about England here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/f...rriage-and-civil-partnership/getting-married/

General information about Scotland here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/s...ge-and-civil-partnership-s/getting-married-s/

Following on from Old Hack's point about possibly being able to bend the rules in, for example, cases of terminal illness: very recently the journalist Steve Hewlett married his partner in an English hospital. The marriage ceremony was arranged at a very few hours notice because Hewlett was very ill. All the information I have on that comes from Hewlett's moving interviews with Eddie Mair on the PM programme (Radio 4; be aware that this is an intimate and detailed discussion of cancer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04s3kz9). But - before you get too excited about using this as a precedent - he (Hewlett) later said that they'd been planning it, and that he'd made a will in anticipation of the marriage (important as in English law a marriage invalidates a previous will). So quite possibly they had the paperwork in place but hadn't set a date for the ceremony.

EMaree said:

Elopements don't seem very popular of late, but I've heard of Gibraltar and St Lucia being used by folks.

(Also, if anyone has some budget UK wedding advice, I'm all ears... arranging a cheap Scottish wedding is harder than I ever expected!)



"Common law marriage" has never been a thing in the England, so this is bad info.

I can't think of a single recent incident where individual "liberties" around marriage have been limited in the UK. On the contrary, with the Civil Partnership Act and same-sex marriage being legalised, UK marriage rights are more equal than they've ever been.

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"Common-law marriages were valid in England until Lord Hardwicke’s Act of 1753. The act did not apply to Scotland, however, and for many years thereafter couples went north across the border to thwart the ban."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/common-law-marriage

Orianna2000 said:

Okay, so I could do a scene where the guy tries to arrange a spur-of-the-moment wedding and utterly fails, due to all the red tape. In frustration, he decides they'll just have to leave the country to get married. That could maybe work.

Or . . . wait. I just found this at the site linked by Thecla:

The Church of England and the Church in Wales are allowed to register a marriage at the same time as performing the religious ceremony.
You won't have to give notice of the marriage to the Register Office unless you or your partner are a non-EEA national. If this is the case, you will need to give 28 days notice to the Register Office.

I can always give my female character citizenship in the UK, even though she's American. I'm a bit confused though, because in the next section, it talks about the Church requiring banns to be read three weeks in a row before the wedding, but it's rather ambiguous about whether it's mandatory or at the church's discretion. Does anyone know?

So my next question is, can they get married at a church even if neither of them is religious? I mean, will a priest/pastor/vicar agree to marry them on short notice if they don't attend his church? As before, I can make it so the groom is owed a huge favor, if that helps.

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I was thinking about the same general idea. Many churches will marry anyone who wants to use their services. but there are some that require that one or both parties be proper members in that sect. I don't know the status of minor sects in the UK, but in the U.S.A., and in many other countries ordained ministers of of any religion can marry, and fill out the papers at the time of the marriage. This is one of the reasons why I became an ordained minister, and the price was right.