registry office wedding - help and thoughts :)

barbarawright

A minimum is about 10-15 minutes. Any chosen readings or music would be extra. I assume you have to submit these in advance because you aren't allowed to have anything religious so no Bible readings or hymns

travelgran

Our local registry office has a photo board of couples who married there. One were in fancy dress as liquorice allsorts! I think they had to take the heads off for the actual ceremony though!

CAN1976

You don't have to get married at the actual registrar's office. I got married at the same venue that my reception was to be held at, which allowed us to decorate as we wished. I believe the venue has to have the correct license for thsi to be a possibility.

EllieJ-x

they must have had so much fun dressed up for their wedding!! I would love to go to a fancy dress wedding!!

i think a service that takes about 20 minutes is even more perfect for us, it will only be our kids at that part but they are 5 and 1 so i cant imagine they are going to want to sit still for much longer then that!! X

continualdiamond

I got married in a pub and it was fab.

Only licensed pub in Nottinghamshire for weddings. Obviously we paid a bit more for having the registrar come to a venue of our choice but the service was exactly what we wanted. We had a choice of what we wanted to say to each other, had to circle our choice on the piece of paper we got given before hand.

After the wedding the room was then transformed into our reception so whilst we paid more for the registrar we had the ease of everyone staying in 1 place. We had a buffet for our meal and for afters we had our wedding cupcakes.

Our venue cost was only £395 from 11am - 11pm so family went in for us and decorated it all. It catered for up to 25 people which was perfect for us as didn't want a big wedding.

My dress was from Monsoon wedding section and was in the sale for £90 instead of £180. I bought two, one that fitted and one to slim into, I managed to fit into the smaller size and then sold the bigger size for what I paid for it, I was a bit sneaky in that I kept the £180 tag on it so people would think that I paid full price and was selling it for 1/2 that.

Flowers were off ebay as I wanted to keep them. Cake was made by my friend as her gift to us and I had a photographer who was gaining experience and just wanted her petrol cost covering, that cost me £50 and I got every photo on a disc with 50 photos if I remember right edited to high quality.

All up everything to do with the wedding from the big things right now to buying craft bits to make the invites, thank you cards and making our wedding album came in at £2,500.

EllieJ-x

omg! If i told my oh about a pub wedding he would be sold! Haha! That sounds amazing though and so cheap! Well done on the dress too that is an excellent idea!
I'm still in the very early stages of planning mine but in getting so many ideas for it!!

lowlitmemory

I had a register office wedding. Beautiful room in a beautiful building, 100 guests, 45 minute ceremony with 2 readings, I wore a huge white dress with train and had 4 bridesmaids, men in matching tails.

The last wedding I attended as a guest was also in a register office, a much smaller building but quite pretty. 10 guests, no bridesmaids, 15 minute ceremony, bride wore a purple dress, men in own suits.

They can be very different!

bagpussbear

Hi, I got married 18 months ago in a Registry office. In answer to your questions (on my own experience)

Dress: you can wear what you like and full wedding gowns are absolutely fine. I wore a long gown.

Touches to the room: my room had flowers already in there with some lilies on the register office table at the front. But we could add more if we like, but we chose not to. It's up to the individual registry office.

We were allowed to write our own vows for a certain part of the ceremony, or you could choose one of theirs provided, we chose out of the suggestions they gave.

Music, 3 songs given on a CD - played when I came in, then another song whilst signing the register, and then another when we walked out. I would say the whole thing was 15 mins beginning to end.

We had our wedding at 4pm (last of the day) and then had a do above a pub, with buffet food and welcome glass of bubbly for everyone.

We had a great time, and we didn't go into any debt over it, was very reasonable financially.

Shout if you need to know any more OP, but i hope this helps.

Edited to add: if you write any of your own words, they cannot be religious in any way and will be scrutinised by the registry office in advance.

FBaby

OH and I wanted our ceremony to take place at the hotel we were planning to have the wedding breakfast and evening party out, so were so disappointed when the registry couldn't get someone out that day so we had no choice but to get married at our local registry office (I think I even wrote a thread about it at the time!).

Ironically, it was the best thing that could have happened. We are extremely fortunate that the registry is at the local town hall which is a stunning historical building with a massive staircase, and the room was all pannelled and very much looked like a church inside. I was able to 'walk down the aisle' and I wore a quite traditional dress which looked totally appropriate.

A few months later, we were invited to a wedding at the poshest hotel in our area, and although it was majestic, it didn't feel as official. It seemed we were in and out of that room and that was it. I liked the fact that we had to then travel to get to our reception.

Of course it totally depends on the registry office too. The one in the next town looks really work office like, no personality to it at all, and I would have much preferred an hotel venue than that registry office.

PuzzledDave

I was married in a registry office... it just happened to be the "Archbishops Palace ! We made the ceremony as short as possible, no music or anything - have been told by many people since it was fantastic, short and to the point so we could knacker off to celebrate.

We did the whole thing on a shoestring too - although this was 10 years ago now, in total we paid something like £600 -- and that includes the wedding rings and engagement ring. Yes, our wedding rings are very thin... but that has been real handy at times - the edges are so thin can be used as an improvised cutting tool

We were very fortunate that my in-laws live in a country cottage which has a good sized bit of land and they and my parents paid for the food/booze.

Both sets of our parents were a bit unhappy, mine wanted a far longer and more serious event and the wifes father wanted to give her away. I guess it didn't help when I said tongue-in-cheek he could give her away if he paid a suitable sized dowry (hey, if he wants to keep one old tradition alive I say we keep the other).