Your venue

Commercial venues such as hotels, stately homes, restaurants, clubs and other similar premises may be licensed to host civil ceremonies. Some of our ceremony venues are quite small but offer a very professional, personal service for small parties of people.

The premises must be a permanent, immovable structure comprising at least one room, or any boat or other vessel which is permanently moored. We can perform the legal parts of a marriage or civil partnership outside providing it is in within the boundary of the venue and there is a room inside to use should weather force the ceremony inside.

Premises must not have any religious connection and must have the relevant planning permissions to host civil ceremonies.

We offer two different lengths of licence:

• There is a fee of £2,300 for a 3-year licence
• There is a fee of £3,600 for a 5-year licence.
• This is for an unlimited number of rooms or outside spaces within your venue.

Fees are reviewed in September and April each year.

The grant of approval (the licence) is granted subject to certain legal and local conditions being met, including health and safety, satisfactory fire risk assessments, relevant planning permissions if necessary and accessibility.

Once you have sent a completed application form, together with supporting documentation and the fee to the register office, a visit will be booked for the Superintendent Registrar or Deputy to attend your venue. They assess the premises for suitability, talk about the services we offer and answer any questions that you may have.

Providing all the criteria are met an advertisement will appear on our website seeking any public objections to the application. We will also send your application to the Fire Service for their input. If no objections have been lodged within a set period of time and the fire service raise no objections, the approval will be granted and a licence will be issued.

From receipt of a completed application form to approval can take up to 3 months.