Wedding Laws Confusion!

[Jonesonaboat]

So my mister and I are getting married this year!
He's coming to the UK in a few months and we're going to spend a whole month in the UK as he's never been before and wants me to show him everything there is to see in Britain. Anyway, we'd like to get married here in the UK but I'd like to make it clear that we're not so bothered about it being legal, as we can do that when we go back to Canada together. But right now we're weighing up the possibilites.

So, really, if we get legally married here then we don't have to do it back in Canada. But if it's too difficult then we are happy to just have the ceremony type thing without it being legal.

My question, and I've been doing my own research online but can't really find any straight answers, is how would we go about having a LEGAL marriage in the UK? And if this is not possible or too difficult, how would we get a non-legal marriage/ceremony type thing?

Also, he is from Canada and I'm British

Thanks guys!

[Mizpah]

Congrats! I don't know about British laws, but as for the non-legal ceremony it can be as simple or complex as you want Decide what you want from the ceremony--expensive or inexpensive, guests or no guests, officiant or no officiant, traditions and details, and of course location. Aaron and I canceled our wedding, and decided that a small beach ceremony on Topsail Island with just the two of us, personal vows, a few details (personal vows written in greeting cards that said "I Love You" in orange and pink French, a "ring disc" aka clay gift tag that said "Love You" that I tied our rings to with thin orange and pink ribbons), nice outfits (white button up and khakis for him, simple white dress and sparkly white flip-flops for me), a nice dinner, and a weekend at the beach was important to us. None of this would require the hiring (or asking of a friend or relative) to be an officiant, or location permits since it wouldn't be legal.

First, I looked up NC marriage laws and found that we could get married by the magistrate that just-so-happened to be housed at the county's detention center for exactly $80 (one of his great aunts had gifted us that exact amount), but we would need two witnesses. We had planned to use his younger brother and my younger sister as witnesses, but it simply would have been to unrealistic for the two teenagers to travel from WI and WV, but two of my friends offered to come down and one of them offered to do our photography as a gift! We went shopping, and found our outfits, I thought I booked our hotel, found a restaurant, and ordered some orange and pink cupcakes from a local bakery. We already had our marriage license since we had planned a wedding for our elopement date of August 7, 2010. I wore a red dress I already owned, and he wore the shirt he had bought with jeans to the legal ceremony, and then traveled to Topsail Island with our friends. Turns out our hotel wasn't ours after all, so after Mary-and-Joesphing it around the island, we decided to have our 'reception' early and dined with our friends at the restaurant I had found. We then went to the beach, chose a stretch, and exchanged our personal vows and rings. While the friends were there doing the photography, it was like it was just the two of us since the waves were crashing so loudly. It was simply perfect. After shooting some photos on the beach (my avatar being one of them), we enjoyed our cupcakes (hey, just because we canceled the wedding, doesn't meant we have to skip the cake! haha) and parted ways with our friends. We spent the next two days and nights at the beach. The hotel we finally found was not the fanciest place, but we weren't too picky, and we got a discount for being "honeymooners."

All in all we spent under $600 and that included our attire, our marriage license, the magistrate fee, a certified marriage certificate, gas to and from the island, snacks for the trip, his wedding band, the ring disc and ribbons, the vow cards, cupcakes, 'reception' dinner, meals during our two days and nights at the beach, two nights at a hotel, etc.
I hope that my jumbled post helped you some

I found these links on marital legalities in UK:

https://www.thesite.org/sexandrelati...ukmarriagelaws
https://www.wedding-services.demon.co.uk/marriage.htm
https://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index...ng_married.htm

In the first reply, it talks about "blessings marriage ceremonies" so you could have that in a church (if either of you are religious) and then have a legal ceremony in Canada:

https://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569340

I haven't seen anything about permits being needed for non-legal ceremonies, but I do know that for any legal outdoor affairs some of my recently married UK friends had to have special permits, and they found out some locations would make their marriage technically non-legal. Aaron and I didn't need a location permit by NC law due to the fact we weren't having guests, officiant, or legal ceremony. It may be the same in the UK, but my research hasn't yielded any sure responses.