Planning your marriage ceremony

What is a Registrar?

A Registrar (also known as a Civil Registration Officer or Deputy Superintendent Registrar, Deputy Registrar) is a person appointed to legally perform and record marriages and civil partnerships. These take place at Approved Marriage and Civil Partnership venues in the Wakefield district.

What is a Celebrant?

A Celebrant is an independent person who performs non-legal ceremonies in any location.

Once you have chosen your venue you need to book a ceremony date and time using our online booking form. Your booking will be confirmed within 5 days of submitting the form.

You can also use this form to reschedule an existing booking.

For information about Relevant and Foreign Nationals, please see the first page of the reserve or reschedule your ceremony form. This information can also be found on our Giving Notice of Marriage or Civil Partnership page here.

Please see the following link for more information if it applies to your situation:

• urgent or deathbed wedding

Please see the following links for information if they apply to your situation:

• ceremony in a religious building
• ceremony abroad

For more information on giving notice, please see our Giving Notice of Marriage or Civil Partnership page.

Once you have given notice of your ceremony, we will send/issue you our Ceremony Guide, which will include our ceremony arrangement form and help you plan your day.

These will be covered in more detail in the next step of the process: personalising your ceremony!

Marriage guides

The following guides have been designed to help you plan your day.

Please use the Town Hall Marriage Guide for the following venues:

• The Nelson Room (Pontefract Town Hall)
• The Hartley Suite (Pontefract Town Hall)
• The Lofthouse Suite (Wakefield Town Hall)
• Room One (Wakefield Town Hall)

• Wakefield and Pontefract Town Hall Marriage Guide (PDF)
• Wakefield and Pontefract Town Hall Marriage Guide (accessible Word version)

For any other venues, please use the Approved Venues Marriage Guide.

• Approved Venues Marriage Guide (PDF)
• Approved Venues Ceremony Guide (accessible Word version)

Statutory ceremony appointment card

• Statutory ceremony appointment card

Information to consider

It is important that before you start the process of completing the ceremony arrangement form (which we will send after you give notice) you consider the following:

• the form cannot be completed more than 10 weeks in advance of your ceremony
• the form cannot be saved part way through, therefore you will need to have made decisions about your choices and have accompanying information to hand to attach
  • for example, your own vows or readings can be attached as a file document. It would be helpful to have a copy of one of our ceremony guides with you when completing the form
• if your ceremony is at one of our Town Halls, we have a list of music available that we can provide for you to use for your ceremony
• you will need your card details ready to make payment at the end of the process
• you will receive an email confirming its receipt with a copy of the information you have completed, and an email confirming payment
• if you have any problems completing your form please contact the Ceremonies Co-ordinator by email at ceremonies@wakefield.gov.uk providing your contact number and we will call you to provide guidance

Bespoke ceremony meeting

You can also contact our registrars team at ceremonies@wakefield.gov.uk, or book a bespoke ceremony meeting to discuss the ceremony arrangement form, or any other details with us.

Once you have decided on the content of your ceremony and the people you will involve, you will need to complete the ceremony arrangement form and make payment.

You can find more information about pricing on our Paying for your ceremony page, but here’s an overview:

• non-refundable booking fee – a fee to secure your ceremony date and time
• notice of marriage fee – a statutory fee for each person to give their notice of intention to marry
• ceremony fee – is subject to the venue, day and time of your ceremony
• certificate fee – statutory fee of £12.50 for each certificate you require
• postage fee – fee to send certificates purchased, by first class signed for post after the ceremony

Marriage certificate

Your marriage certificate will be posted to you seven to ten working days after your ceremony.

Re-registration of the birth of your child after your marriage

If you and your partner got married or formed a civil partnership after your baby's birth and want the birth record to show your child as part of your marriage/civil partnership, follow these steps:

• download and fill out the LA1 form
• send the form by email to wakefieldregistrars@wakefield.gov.uk or mail it to Wakefield Register Office, Wood Street, Wakefield, WF1 2HQ
• once we receive the completed form, we'll contact you to schedule an appointment. Only one parent needs to attend, bringing the signed LA1 form and required documents
• if your marriage occurred outside the UK, your application will need approval from the General Register Office. Let us know before booking your appointment
• at the appointment to re-register you can buy a new birth certificate

It is free to re-register a birth. If you wish to buy a copy of the new birth certificate, it costs £12.50 per copy.

Changes to your passport

If you are planning to amend your passport into your married name before your ceremony - to become valid on the date of your ceremony - you need to complete a standard application form along with a form PD2 which you can obtain:

• from any Post Office that offers a check send
  service
• from any regional passport office
• by calling His Majesty’s Passport Office
• passport advice line on 0300 222 0000 who will send it to you
• by downloading it from the www.gov.uk website

Please note: the new passport will be dated to become valid on the day of your ceremony and therefore cannot be used before. Similarly, when His Majesty’s Passport Office cancels your old passport, any visas on that passport may become invalid.

There is also a leaflet (PD1) entitled ‘Passports for Newly Weds and Civil Partners’, which explains exactly what to do. After you have completed your section of the PD2 form, the Superintendent Registrar will also need to complete part of the form. Please contact our office to book an appointment.

If you decide to change your name on your passport after your marriage, you need only complete and send a standard application form along with the required documents to His Majesty’s Passport Office. The form PD2 is not required.

Name change after marriage ceremony

To change your name after your marriage ceremony, please view the guidance page on gov.uk here.

Give us feedback from your ceremony

If you'd like to give us feedback from your marriage ceremony, please visit our customer feedback, consultations, and news page.