Getting married in a Catholic church in Britain

A Catholic wedding in Britain runs on two tracks at once, and couples come unstuck where they cross. One is the Church’s own preparation, which starts at the parish and takes months. The other is civil registration, which is run by the state, works differently in Scotland from England and Wales, and is the couple’s responsibility rather than the priest’s. Get the second one wrong and the first cannot go ahead.

Start with the parish, and start early

Six months is the number British dioceses publish. The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh states that you must give at least six months notice of your intention to marry to your parish priest, because the obligations of marriage are serious and the Church wishes to help you prepare properly. The Diocese of East Anglia requires six months notice of intention of marriage. The Archdiocese of Southwark says at least six months notice of marriage is normally required, and recommends nine months, or nine to twelve, for a wedding outside the United Kingdom, because the papers travel through the diocesan chancery to the bishop’s office overseas.

None of that is universal law. Church law says only that pastors must offer personal preparation for marriage, and that before a marriage is celebrated it must be evident that nothing stands in the way of its valid and licit celebration. Six months is how three dioceses translate that into a diary, and it is diocesan practice, so ask the parish you actually intend to marry in.

Two related points from the same Edinburgh document, both easy to get wrong. Your own parish priest is responsible for preparing you even if you intend to marry elsewhere, and where one party is not a Catholic it is the parish priest of the place where the Catholic party lives. And do not book a reception venue or pay a deposit before you have spoken to him and, where the church is not your own parish church, to the priest of that church.

Marriage preparation is expected on top of the meetings. The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh states that a marriage preparation course is a requirement for those wishing to be married in the Catholic Church. East Anglia asks for both a course in the local parish and a Saturday day course. The bishops of England and Wales note that there are a number of legitimate ways to structure programmes of marriage preparation and that each local church works out how best to provide it, and name Marriage Care as the biggest provider of formal marriage preparation in the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

What Church law asks

Catholic teaching holds that the marriage covenant between a baptised man and a baptised woman has been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament, and canon law adds that between the baptised a valid marriage contract cannot exist without being by that fact a sacrament. That is why a Catholic wedding is not treated as a ceremony wrapped around a civil act.

The rules a couple meets are these. Catholics who have not been confirmed are to receive confirmation before marriage if it can be done without grave inconvenience, which is why a parish asks about it early. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, the parish priest, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, and before two witnesses. Marriages are to be celebrated in a parish where either party has a domicile, a quasi-domicile or a month’s residence. After the wedding the parish priest of the place of celebration records the names of the spouses, the person who assisted and the witnesses, with the place and date, in the marriage register.

Where the wedding can be

A marriage between two Catholics, or between a Catholic and a baptised non-Catholic, is to be celebrated in a parish church, and may be celebrated in another church or oratory with the permission of the local ordinary or the parish priest. Where one party is not baptised, the law allows a church or another suitable place.

Scotland is stricter than the universal law, and says so. The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh states that the normal place for a wedding is the parish church of the bride or groom, that marrying outside your own parish needs your parish priest’s permission, and that in that archdiocese permission is not granted for marriages in hotels, castles, convents, school chapels or similar places, with no exceptions, describing this as the agreement between all the bishops of Scotland.

In England and Wales the constraint arrives from the other direction, from civil law rather than diocesan policy, and it points the same way: the ceremony has to happen in a building registered for marriage.

The civil side in England and Wales

You give notice at a register office. Notice must be given at least twenty nine days before the ceremony, you must have lived in that registration district for the past seven days, you usually need an appointment, and you must hold the ceremony within twelve months of giving notice. If you live in different districts you each give notice in your own.

Since 2021 the paperwork is a marriage schedule. One schedule is issued per couple, by the superintendent registrar of the registration district in which the marriage is to take place, and it should be presented to the church on or before the day. There is no marriage register book at the ceremony any more: the couple, the witnesses and the authorised person sign the schedule after the ceremony, the register office enters the details in the electronic register afterwards, and certificates come from the register office or the General Register Office rather than from the church. An authorised person is legally required to return the signed marriage schedule to their local register office within twenty one days of the date of marriage.

Two consequences for a Catholic wedding. The building must be registered for the solemnisation of marriages, which most Catholic parish churches are, and the ceremony needs either an authorised person or a registrar present; a registered building may have more than one authorised person, and in a Catholic parish the priest often is one. The other is that the public must have unrestricted access to the registered building during the ceremony, so that any objection can be made. That is the reason the doors stay open.

The civil side in Scotland

Scotland works on a marriage notice and a Marriage Schedule, and the mechanism is different enough that the English instructions are no use.

Each of you submits a marriage notice, form M10, to the district registrar, with the fee, your birth certificate and, where a previous marriage or civil partnership has ended, the decree or death certificate. If the registrar is satisfied there is no legal impediment, a Marriage Schedule is completed. Two timing rules govern it: the registrar cannot issue the Schedule within twenty eight days of receiving a marriage notice, except where the Registrar General authorises an earlier date on a written request giving reasons, and cannot issue it earlier than seven days before the wedding without the same authorisation. A religious or belief marriage may be solemnised only on the date and at the place specified in the Schedule.

Then it goes to the church. A marriage may not be solemnised by an approved celebrant unless the parties produce the Marriage Schedule to him before the ceremony, both parties are present, and two people professing to be sixteen or over are there as witnesses. Immediately after the ceremony the Schedule is signed by the couple, both witnesses and the celebrant, and the couple must deliver or send it to the district registrar within three days.

The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh states the practical version for couples: it is the sole responsibility of the couple to organise the civil requirements in accordance with Scots law, the priest will be unable to marry you without the Schedule since this would be a criminal offence, and it is also the couple’s responsibility to make sure the marriage is registered within three days of the wedding.

The place rule is the one most often misread. Scotland has no registered-buildings requirement, because the Schedule names the place, which is why civil and belief weddings there happen on beaches and in castles. That freedom does not reach a Catholic wedding, which the bishops of Scotland keep in the parish church.

If one of you is not a Catholic

A marriage between a Catholic and a baptised member of another Christian communion cannot be celebrated without the express permission of the competent authority. Permission needs a just and reasonable cause and three conditions: the Catholic party declares readiness to remove dangers of falling away from the faith and sincerely promises to do all in their power to have any children baptised and brought up Catholic; the other party is told about that promise, so that it is certain they know of it; and both are instructed about the purposes and essential properties of marriage.

A Catholic marrying someone who is not baptised at all, or wishing to marry in the rites of another Christian communion or another religion, needs a dispensation rather than a permission. The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh says the priest preparing you will explain the conditions and help you submit the request, that the second kind is given only for serious reasons, and that no arrangements should be made until it has been granted. Both dioceses treat this as ordinary work, not an obstacle, but it is work that takes time, which is the argument for the six months.

The papers

Expect to be asked for a recent baptismal certificate. The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh asks a Catholic for an extract from the baptismal register of the parish of baptism that is not older than six months, and a signed declaration from next of kin that you have never attempted marriage in any civil or religious ceremony and are free to marry; a baptised non-Catholic brings a baptismal certificate from the church of baptism and the same declaration; someone not baptised brings the declaration alone. The Diocese of East Anglia says the baptismal certificate must be an original, does not need translating into English, and is obtained by contacting the church where you were baptised and asking for a baptism certificate for marriage.

Note the six months on the certificate. It is not the certificate your parents were given at the time; it is a fresh extract, and the parish that holds your baptism entry issues it. Our guide to arranging a Catholic baptism for a child explains which parish that is and why the register matters.

Finding the parish

Start from our directory of churches, or from the Mass times pages if you know the town but not the parish. Each church page carries the contact details and any parish website. The diocese pages list the parishes in each diocese, and the diocesan office is the place to ask which parish covers an address if you have recently moved.

The register office is a separate errand and a separate appointment, and it is worth making it early: in England and Wales the notice period starts running when you give notice, and in Scotland the Schedule cannot be issued for twenty eight days after the notice reaches the registrar.

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