Cheap Registry Office Wedding on a Saturday

pookali

I am getting married (yippee!) and we are looking for a cheap registry office near london on a saturday, however it is proving to be an absolute nightmare.

We literally want the no frills legal stuff only with two witnesses. Ideally would like to spend less than £100 on the ceremony, but I haven't managed to find anywhere near London that offers this. Has anyone got any ideas?

RobynLouise_2

I might be completely off the mark here but I would imagine that registrar fees are pretty non negotiable - it might be different because we are having them come to us however you will have to pay a set amount to give notice for your wedding, plus the fees for the day, I think all in all our registrar plus note and paying for certificates will be over £500.

krustylouise

I think you will struggle to get a cheap wedding on a Saturday. If you do a weekday before 11:30 that's usually cheapest.

Evil_Olive

Most, if not all, local authorities have restrictions on when and where they will offer the no-frills ceremony at the statutory £49 fee. They will usually offer it in only one of the registry offices in the local authority area, in a small ordinary office of the building and restrict it to one or two set weekdays and unpopular times (eg early in the morning)

Sadly, I think you will not find one which does them on a Saturday at all and these days, this basic service isn't what I would call a 'ceremony' anyway - I think it would be very disappointing as a main wedding ceremony.

We are avoiding this problem by having the proper Wedding Ceremony performed as a Traditional Handfasting by a pagan friend, followed by the reception, on the Saturday of our choice and then popping down to the registry office a few days later to take care of the 'legal bit' on a day when the basic service is available.

I've also known people who've done the same sort of thing but swapping the pagan ceremony for a Humanist one or even a friend/relative who is a good actor/speaker officiating at a ceremony that the bride and groom have devised themselves.

There's some info you might find useful in my thread here (post #12 is where I put most of the info I collected about basic registry office ceremonies):
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4869355

minerva_windsong

You can't spend less than £100 on the ceremony - the fees for the bog-standard ceremony and giving notice are set nationally and total £119 (£49 for ceremony plus £35 each to give notice).

Registrars are likely to be out at various licensed venues on a Saturday, especially if you want to get married at a popular time of year, so I think you might struggle. The way round it might, unfortunately, be to pay slightly more and see if you can book one of the nicer rooms in the registry office but these can be about £200 depending what area you're in (although I'm not sure if that would include the £49 ceremony fee).

Roz_V

I don't know what it's like for the London reg offices, but we got married in Bakewell Registry Office on a Saturday in early September (still classed as "wedding season"). They only do ceremonies there until about 12/12.30 as they're then off out to licensed venues. I think it was the same setup when we looked at Sheffield too...

But as others have said, you won't get it for under £100 I'm afraid!