Arranging a civil marriage
The fees and charges for Wirral Registration Service from April 2024.
The fees relating to certificates, notice of marriage and corrections are statutory charges set by the Registrar General for England and Wales and can be viewed on the government website.
Civil marriages can take place at a number of venues in Wirral:
Booking a marriage date
Customers will no longer be able to provisionally book a marriage, make a notice of marriage appointment or make marriage payments in person. All enquiries will be dealt via email only.
To book please email rbdm@wirral.gov.uk along with your proposed date, your venue, the ceremony time you would like and your telephone number.
Dates are available up to two years in advance.
There is a £48 non-refundable booking fee to secure the date and time of the ceremony. Please note, this is not a deposit and is not removed from the final balance.
Your provisional booking will be held for 3 months from the date you can give legal notice of marriage.
Once both partners have given their notice of marriage this will be used to confirm the booking.
Giving notice of a marriage
Notice of marriage cannot be given until a provisional booking has been confirmed.
Each partner must personally give a notice of marriage to the Superintendent Registrar. You should give notice in the district in which you have lived for at least 8 days prior to giving notice, even if you are marrying in another district.
If you live in Wirral, email rbdm@wirral.gov.uk to make an appointment. Add your contact telephone number.
You can give your notice a minimum of 28 days before the date of marriage and a maximum of 12 months before. The notice is only valid for the venue specified. If this changes you would need to give, and pay for, new notices.
If you are having a Church of England wedding you do not need to give notice to us. You should contact the vicar of the church for advice on legal requirements.
Cost for giving Notice of Marriage
£42 per person (£84 per couple).
When you give your notice of marriage you will need to provide a number of documents:
- a passport (or a birth certificate if a passport is not available)
- if you were born after 1 January 1983 and you are providing a birth certificate you must also provide your mother’s birth certificate
- proof of address (a current driving licence, a current council tax bill, bank statement dated no more than one month before the date of notice or a utility bill dated no more than three months before the date of notice)
- if either party has been in a marriage or civil partnership previously, you will need to provide evidence of the dissolution (a certified copy of the decree absolute)
- if either party is widowed, you will need to produce a certified copy of the death certificate
- special rules apply if one or both partners are subject to Immigration Control
Giving notice of a marriage:
We are dealing with an extremely high volume of emails to book notice of intention to marry-civil partnership appointments. We are prioritising marriages/civil partnerships that are taking place within the next 3 months. Please only email if your marriage date is within 3 months.
- full names
- date of marriage
- venue
- contact numbers
Marriage registration
From Tuesday 4 May 2021, The Marriages, Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Death (Registration Etc) Act 2019, will change how we register marriages.
Paper marriage registers and certificates will be replaced by marriage schedules and electronic registrations.
At the marriage ceremony, couples will sign a marriage schedule (an A4 document). Couples can include up to four parents in the schedule and subsequently on their marriage certificate, i.e. Mother, Father, Stepmother, Stepfather.
Couples will no longer receive a marriage certificate on the day of the marriage.
For marriage ceremonies at Local Authority venues, and Approved Marriage and Civil Partnership Venues
Marriage certificates will be processed by the Register Office within seven working days and be posted out to the couple.
For marriages in Religious Buildings (including The Church of England)
Couples are expected to return the signed schedule to the Register Office in the District where the marriage took place within 21 days.
For marriages that took place in Wirral, an online application will need to be completed and payment made for the number of certificates required. The Register Office will then process the marriage certificates within seven working days from the date of application.
Marriage authorities can no longer be used from Tuesday 4 May 2021.
If the certificates for marriage (blue authorities) have already been collected before Tuesday 4 May 2021 then couples will need to arrange replace these with a marriage schedule.
EU Settle Status, EU Pre-Settled Status, Pending application for EU Settled Status
In addition to the documents listed above, if you have applied for EU settled status (EUSS) you will need to prove this by:
- providing the unique code generated when you applied, you can access your code by visiting “view and prove your immigration status” on GOV.UK
- the code is only available to those people who have EU settled or EU pre-settled status
- you must provide this code at the time of your notice of marriage appointment
- please note, the code is only valid for 30 days
- if you have a pending application for EUSS you must provide your certificate of application (this can be a paper or digital document)
If you are not a British or Irish citizen and do not hold EUSS status
You must both attend together to give your notice of marriage at the register office in the district in which one or both or you reside.
You should check on GOV.UK to see what documents you can provide to prove your immigration status, such as “Indefinite leave to Enter or Remain" on GOV.UK
If you are entering the UK to marry or form a civil partnership you must check with UKVI that you have the correct visa. This would normally be a marriage or civil partnership visa.
You will both need to provide passport photographs if one or both of you do not have Indefinite leave to enter or Indefinite leave to remain.
If you do not have the appropriate immigration status you will be referred to the Home Office under the referral and investigation scheme and your notice period could be extended to 70 days.
Special licences
If you or your partner has a terminal illness it is possible to get a licence to marry or form a civil partnership very quickly without having to give the usual statutory notices.
Call 0151 606 2020 for more information.
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