Frequently asked questions about ceremonies

To pay the outstanding balance fee, you will need your Booking ID and a debit/credit card (not American Express) to pay online.  The fee must be paid at the latest two months before your ceremony date.
 

After you have given your notice of intent and paid the outstanding balance, your next step should be to start planning what ceremony, vows, ring words, and music you would like to have as part of your special day along with all sorts of other choices to make it the perfect ceremony for you.  To do this, please complete the ceremony pack.
 

A civil partnership is a legally recognised relationship between two people and offers many of the same benefits as a conventional marriage. For more information on the similarities and differences between the two, please visit the GOV.UK Marriage and civil partnership in England and Wales web page.

Check availability and book your marriage ceremony

Check availability and book your civil partnership ceremony

The cost of a marriage or civil partnership ceremony depends on the venue, day and time you choose. Please see our venues for your ceremony and click on the relevant room to view the fees in full. Find out all of our ceremony fees.

The Register Office room - also known as the statutory marriage or civil partnership room - is for those who merely wish to sign the paperwork to complete their legal union in the presence of just two witnesses in a small interview room without readings, music, personal vows, floral arrangements or any fanfare at all.

We regret that we are unable to take bookings for the register office room if it is your intention to have more than two guests or if you wish to incorporate music, readings, personal vows, floral arrangements or  tailor your ceremony in any other way, as the register office room is a small interview room.  Should you wish to have more than two guests and/or tailor your ceremony to your personal wishes, please make a booking for one of our ceremony rooms online by visiting our marriage and civil partnership page.

If you opt for a marriage, you will be required to exchange statutory vows as part of a brief

ceremony.  If you opt for a civil partnership, vows are not required, and you will just be asked to sign the paperwork.  Please note that these are legal stipulations.

The cost for a register office marriage or civil partnership is £57 which consists of £46 for the registration and £11 for one certificate.  The fee is non-refundable. We regret that due to legal stipulations it is not possible to change a current booking to / from the register office if you have already given notice of intention for a different room / venue.

There is very limited availability for the register office option as they only take place on a Monday at 09:15am. If you would to find out when the next register office timeslot is available, please email us at [email protected]

Do remember that even for a marriage or civil partnership in the register office, you will be required to complete the legal requirement to give notice of intention at the latest 29 days before the registration (71 days, if either of you is a non-EEA national).  You can find full information about giving notice of intent on our website via our marriage and civil partnership page.

No, there is not a rehearsal before a civil ceremony. You will be asked to complete a ceremony choices form in advance of your ceremony which will give choices of words, readings and music amongst other elements, to make your ceremony truly unique for you.

Neither you, your witnesses nor your guests need to bring anything with them on the day of the ceremony – just bring yourselves. No-one needs to bring ID as you’ve already shown your ID when you gave notice.

We don’t need to see ID for anyone on the day: neither for you nor for your witnesses. In the very rare circumstance that you’ve legally changed your name between giving notice and the day of the ceremony, bring along your change of name deed document.

We regret that there is no allocated parking at the Chelsea Old Town Hall.  We therefore recommend that you arrive at the venue either by taxi, or by public transport.  The nearest tube stations are Sloane Square or South Kensington. You can also reach the Chelsea Old Town Hall on bus numbers 11, 19, 22, 49, 211 or 319.

There is an unloading bay at the front of the Town Hall. This cannot be used for parking, however it can be used as a drop off or pick-up point, whether this be for a car, bus or other mode of transport.  It cannot be booked or reserved.

On the day of the ceremony, we ask that you and your guests arrive 15 minutes before the start of the ceremony.

You and your guests should enter via the side entrance of the Registrars department at Chelsea Old Town Hall, on Chelsea Manor Street. Your guests can go straight upstairs into the ceremony waiting area, whilst you should report to the reception desk to let a registrar know that you have arrived.

If you and your partner don’t wish to be seen by each other before the start of the ceremony, then we advise that you stagger your arrival times slightly.

In this case, one of you should arrive 20 minutes before, report to the reception desk, and then wait upstairs in the ceremony waiting area with the guests arriving at the same time. The second party should arrive around 10 minutes before the ceremony start time, report to the reception desk, and then wait downstairs in the appointment waiting area to avoid being seen by your partner.

Unfortunately not, as the ceremony needs to start on time so that later ceremonies are not inconvenienced. All ceremonies are subject to our lateness policy below.

Our lateness policy

We understand that arrangements can sometimes go awry, but it is important that your ceremony commences at the agreed time. In order for this to happen, you and your guests are expected to be assembled a minimum of fifteen minutes before the ceremony start time.

The registrars in attendance will need to conduct a legal interview with both of you, in private, prior to the ceremony, and will need to check that your witnesses and any others involved in the ceremony fully understand what is required of them.

The registrars will have other ceremonies to attend after your own, and these may be in different locations within the borough. If you are running late you must make contact with us (if your ceremony is being held at Chelsea Old Town Hall) or with the Approved Venue you have chosen as soon as possible to let us know your whereabouts and how late you may be.

In order to treat all our customers fairly we will not disrupt the timing of a later service because of delays to an earlier one.

Please note that we cannot guarantee that your ceremony will proceed if you and / or your guests are late. We will wait for fifteen minutes after the agreed start time and after this we reserve the right to leave the premises. Given that you are expected to arrive fifteen minutes prior to your ceremony this means that the maximum we will wait is fifteen minutes after the agreed start time.

Please ensure that all those attending your ceremony are aware of our policy as, if any of your guests are running late, the ceremony may have to commence without them.

Please arrive via the Chelsea Manor Street entrance when you arrive and report to our reception desk and security staff. Your guests can proceed directly to the Ceremony Waiting Area upstairs on the ceremonies floor.

As a rough guide, your ceremony usually is completed 25 minutes after the start time. This allows time for your exit, and for the registrars to clean the room for the next ceremony.

The ceremony usually finishes around 25 minutes after it started, although sometimes this can be a little shorter and sometimes it can be a little longer.

The registrar is legally required to interview you both before the ceremony. They are checking that all your details are correct before they are entered into the register, and that you are still free and willing to go ahead with the marriage or civil partnership. They will also run through the personalised choices that you’ve made for your ceremony so that everything is clear before it starts. You’ll find that this personal time with your registrar before the ceremony will be a welcome period of calm on your wedding day.

When you get married or form a civil partnership, you must have two witnesses to sign the marriage or civil partnership schedule. Anyone can be witnesses, as long as they understand what they’re witnessing. We therefore recommend that they speak English and are of an age to understand the meaning and purport of a marriage and civil partnership ceremony, however this is not set in law. They do not need to bring ID with them.

Whilst registrars cannot act as witnesses, we have partnered with Kensington and Chelsea’s librarians to provide you with two professional, friendly and presentable witnesses. The fee for two witnesses is £150. To book, please email the library service at [email protected].

All certificates issued to you are genuine, original certificates, stating “certified copy of an entry” at the top. This means that they are an official and original copy of the entry in the marriage or civil partnership register, which will always be held with us.

Should you require your certificates to be notarised or legalised – such as for foreign governments’ administrative processes – you can do with this with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Legalisation department. Full information on the process can be found on the Get your document legalised page on the GOV.UK website.

Please note that UK marriage and civil partnership certificates meet the EU’s required format and have done since 1969.  Unfortunately the UK does not issue multilingual marriage or civil partnership certificates so should you require these to appear in a different language, you will need to arrange this yourself with an official translator to satisfy foreign authorities' requirements.

There is no legal requirement in the UK to change your surname after marriage; it is merely a tradition. The marriage certificate will indicate the surname that you entered your contract of marriage in; it does not indicate the surname that you intend to use after marriage as this is an entirely personal choice which differs from couple to couple. Therefore, we are unable to amend the name on your marriage certificate as by law it must be the name that you were using when you contracted your marriage.

If you are changing your name after marriage or civil partnership, we recommend that you first update your passport into your new name (you’ll need to present the marriage or civil partnership certificate to the relevant passport authority for this), then use the new passport and the marriage or civil partnership certificate to update everything else such as: bank accounts; employer records; HMRC; council tax and other utility bills.

In your pre-ceremony interview, the registrar will ask you to check that all your details are correct on the schedule, and at the end of the ceremony, they will ask you to check that all the details are correct on the schedule before you sign. 

It’s important to check that the details are correct before you sign. If anything is incorrect, it can be easily changed before you’ve signed. If you spot something that’s wrong after you’ve signed, there is a legal procedure to apply for a correction via the General Register Office. There is a statutory consideration fee of £90 for applications for corrections to marriage or civil partnership registrations, which doesn’t include the cost of new certificates.

Full information on this process can be found on the Correct a marriage registration page on the GOV.UK website. We are able to assist you with this process – please contact us at [email protected].

When you complete your ceremony choices form, we ask you to select your music choices for entering, signing the register, and leaving.  We will enter these details into our system and we will control the music on your behalf.  It's important therefore that you complete your ceremony choices form at the latest one week before your ceremony date and ideally sooner.  

Each of our registrars gives a slightly different but equally professional and heartfelt ceremony. You will be able to choose your ceremony and vows as part of the ceremony choices form which you'll receive in an email from us once you make a booking and have both given notice of intention to marry / enter civil partnership. They all follow a similar format which includes:

• Welcoming and introduction;
• Reading the ceremony proper;
• Asking you both to repeat the declaratory and contracting vows;
• Guiding you through the exchange of rings (optional);
• Declaring you as legally married / civil partnered at the end of the ceremony;
• Inviting you and your two witnesses to sign the register;
• Congratulating you at the end and assisting you and your guests to the front steps for your photos.

Yes, you have a choice of three types of legal vows that would unite you in marriage. You can make this selection on your ceremony choices form. You can say additional vows if you wish, however remember that these must be non-religious in content, and you would either need to memorise them or bring them written so that you don’t forget them on the day.

No, there is no legal requirement for you to exchange rings at a marriage or civil partnership ceremony, even though most people do.

The register office delivers many services alongside ceremonies, and our team has to flex to meet customer demand. As such, it’s not possible to promise that a particular registrar will conduct your ceremony as our team duties won’t be fully allocated until each morning, and therefore a pre-meeting with them is also not possible. However, by completing your ceremony choices form, the registrar allocated to conduct your ceremony on the day will have a very clear picture of the ceremony that you want and will be able to deliver this. If you want to speak to or meet any registrar before your ceremony to ask further questions, please don’t hesitate to call into the Register Office in person, telephone us on 020 7361 4100 or email us at [email protected].

We also regret that you aren’t able to choose a particular registrar, however please be assured that all of our registrars are fully trained and display the utmost professionalism and customer care in how they deliver their ceremonies.

You may be having a non-legal wedding blessing, or religious ceremony, as well your legal marriage ceremony with us and are therefore hoping for something quite small and simple. This is certainly something we accommodate however it’s still useful if you could return the ceremony choices form so that we are aware you are looking for something very simple and low key.

Please be aware that any non-legal blessing ceremonies or religious / (non-)belief ceremonies must take place after your legal marriage ceremony with us.

We also do civil partnership ceremonies, civil partnership to marriage conversion ceremonies, renewal of vows ceremonies, commitment ceremonies and baby naming ceremonies.

Civil Partnership ceremonies are exactly the same as marriage ceremonies and will require you to have given notice, at the latest 29 (or 71) days before the ceremony.

Civil Partnership to Marriage Conversion ceremonies require you to give a declaration before the ceremony, ideally in advance of your ceremony date, and a registrar would advise you of this when you book. You can request an example ceremony script by e-mailing us at [email protected].

Renewal of vows ceremonies, commitment ceremonies and baby naming ceremonies are non-legal ceremonies and so no preliminaries are required.  You are able to request example ceremony scripts by emailing us at [email protected].

If you are having a renewal of vows ceremony, please call into the register office in advance of your ceremony date so that we can see your original marriage / civil partnership certificate (with translation into English if required) and your passports.

You should pay for your ceremony in advance of the ceremony date online or by calling us on 020 7361 4100.

We regret that there is no standing room available in any of the ceremony rooms.

You can take any items of clothing / accessories into the ceremony room as unfortunately there is no cloakroom at Chelsea Old Town Hall. Do remember to take these with you at the end of the ceremony.

We regret that suitcases, large bags, prams or pushchairs cannot fit into the ceremony rooms but can be left in the ceremony waiting area.

The décor of the rooms is such that they don’t need to be redecorated for your ceremony. Flowers are provided. We regret that it is not possible to change the layout of the ceremony rooms or to add / remove chairs.

We regret that food and drink is not allowed in the ceremony rooms.

Yes there is. At Chelsea Old Town Hall, there is a lift at the library entrance to the building. A security porter at the library’s entrance would be able to assist any wheelchair users through the building to the Registrars' department. If you or any of your guests require wheelchair access, please let us know in advance either at the time of booking, on your ceremony choices form or by emailing us at [email protected] and we can ensure that a porter will be on hand for your arrival.

Confetti can be thrown outside, including on the main steps. Confetti must be biodegradable. You can bring your own or buy some from our reception desk using a credit or debit card.

View our ceremony terms and conditions.

Our ceremony rooms can accommodate the following:

• The Brydon Room allows the couple + 38 guests
• The Rossetti Room allows the couple + 12 guests
• The Harrington Room allows the couple + 8 guests

Children aged 4 and under do not count in the numbers as they are small enough to sit on the lap of a parent or guardian.

A professional photographer, videographer of musician will not count toward the maximum capacity in any of our three ceremony rooms.

If you wanted to be the only wedding party in Chelsea Old Town Hall during your ceremony or for a set period then we may be able to block out other ceremony rooms for you, as long as they aren’t already booked out by someone else. You will be required to cover the cost of the closed ceremony rooms. As costs for rooms vary depending on the day and time, please contact us for a bespoke quote.

Our friendly team will be delighted to give you a tour of our ceremony rooms. Please just drop by our reception desk during our opening hours. There is no need to book, ask for anyone particular upon arrival.  Please be advised that you may need to wait a short while if the ceremony rooms are in use when you arrive.  We recommend coming along on Thursday evenings, when we stay open until 7pm to show couples around the rooms.

We are delighted to be a dog-friendly wedding venue. Please do read section 6 of our Terms and Conditions which details our Dog Policy.

We are proud to have partnered with Life’s Big Moments to ensure nothing stops you from sharing one of the treasured occasions with your loved ones. Life’s Big Moments streaming and recording allows friends and family to watch from home, work, abroad or anywhere else on their computer, smartphone or tablet.

If you would like to live stream your wedding ceremony, please call us on 020 7361 4100 during office hours. A registrar will take the payment of £100 over the phone and provide further instructions about live streaming your ceremony.

You can apply for a passport in your new name up to 3 months before your marriage or civil partnership ceremony. Please click here to complete the PD2 form.

The completed PD2 form then needs to be signed by the registrar. Please drop by at our reception at Chelsea Old Town Hall during our opening hours Monday to Friday 09:00 – 16:00. There is a £10.00 fee for this service.