Emma's answers to Surprise wedding

Question

My brother is trying to arrange a surprise marriage for himself and his girlfriend. He would like to hire a venue and then bring in somebody to marry them as a surprise to his girlfriend. How should he go about doing this?

Answer

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just hiring a registrar to marry you. Your brother would have to first find a venue that holds a civil licence.

Once he has a venue booked, they will have their own registrar that is associated with the place. Together with his girlfriend he would have to give notice. Your brother can't do this without her. The terms of giving notice involve them both being resident in the area they intend to marry for seven days, and on the eighth day they can apply for a wedding license. They would then have to wait a further fifteen days for the license and then have up to one year to use it.

So, as you can see, it's not something he can just surprise her with.

Emma x