Planning your ceremony – Council Chamber (weekends)

If you are seeing each other before the start of the ceremony, please both arrive with your guests around 15 minutes before the ceremony start time.

If you don’t want to see each other before the start of the ceremony, we would advise that one partner arrives with the guests around 15 minutes before the ceremony start time, and the other partner about 10 minutes before. This way your ceremony should be able to start on time. By arriving at different times you will minimise the risk of accidently running into each other outside the building. Once you enter the building our team will take you to a room where you will not see each other.

Consideration needs to be given to the timely start of all events, and if you arrive more than 10 minutes late, unfortunately your ceremony will not be able to take place and you will have to rebook and incur rescheduling fees.

We are not able to allow couples or guests into the building earlier than this as we have carefully controlled safe capacity limits. To ensure all couples have time and space to have photographs taken around the building after their ceremony, we are not able to accommodate couples arriving early to take pictures inside.

Chauffeured cars, taxis and buses can stop outside the building to drop off couples or guests, but we don’t have general parking available at the Town Hall, so we advise your guests to arrive by public transport.

There is step-free access via ramps and lifts to all levels, as well as accessible bathrooms. However, please consider bringing mobility aids for those who are unable to walk around our large building to the lifts and ceremony rooms.

If you or any of your guests have a disability, you will need to click here to complete a Personal Emergency Evacuation Form before the ceremony. Guide dogs and other trained assistance animals are welcomed, but your animal should wear their vest to show that they are a trained assistance animal and not just your pet.

We have limited special access parking spaces available on the Town Hall forecourt for people with disabilities, and these need to be booked well in advance by emailing securitytownhall@islington.gov.uk.

The Council Chamber has a strict maximum of 85 guests that can be safely accommodated on weekends, including babies and children, decided by fire regulations. If your guests exceed the number allowed in the room, then some of them will be asked to remain outside the building.

Please note that we do not allow helium balloons inside the building as we have high ceilings.

Our anterooms are beautiful bookable spaces for couples who have booked a Council Chamber ceremony, and want a space to arrive a little bit early and relax in 45 minutes before the ceremony, either together as a couple, or with your best people.

You can find out more by visiting the anteroom page. Please ensure you have decided whether to book an anteroom before you complete the form at the end of this page.

You can bring one pet to your ceremony in the Council Chamber if you choose.

If you want to bring your pet on your special day, please click here to complete a form agreeing to our terms and conditions at least a month before your ceremony.

Inviting your pet to your ceremony does not affect the number of people you can invite to your ceremony.

Please note that this change in policy does not affect registered assistance animals attending ceremonies, which are always welcomed.

At the entrance of the building, our team will greet you and confirm the ceremony you are attending. We will show your guests to the Council Chamber and show you and your partner to a separate room/s for your pre-ceremony interview, depending on whether you want to see each other before the ceremony or not.

We aim to be able to give you access to the ceremony room 15 minutes before your scheduled ceremony start time. Photographers and musicians will only be able to enter the room when it is ready, which may mean they are not able to enter the room before the guests.

If you choose to bring personal flowers for the table, you can bring them into the Council Chamber with you at this point. Our rooms are used for more than one ceremony a day, so we are unable to allow further decorating of the room or changing the layout for your ceremony.

It is completely up to you where your guests sit in the room, but please see the seating plan below if this is useful to you:

Your registrars will be allocated a month before the ceremony, so once you have completed the form at the end of this page, please email us if you want to be put in touch with them, so you can arrange a time of mutual convenience to discuss your ceremony by phone.

Please note that we do not offer a choice of registrar based on their personal characteristics.

Before the ceremony, you and your partner will need to check the details to go on the marriage or civil partnership certificate. Separately or together, our registrars will ask you the same questions you were asked when you gave notice, for example, your full name and date of birth etc. This is to make sure that the details on the legal record of your marriage/civil partnership are correct and up to date on the day of your ceremony. This takes 10-15 minutes and is why we ask you to arrive a little bit earlier than your ceremony start time.

We will then ask you to visually check the paperwork to make sure it is correct.

You do not need to bring any identification to this interview unless our team have specifically advised you to because of your individual circumstances.

Following the interview, we will bring you and your partner to the Council Chamber ready for your entrance. Please choose the entrance that suits you, whether you enter the room together, with parents, with bridesmaids, with your children or however you prefer.

Our team will ask the guests to stand, ask the guest in charge of the music to play in the entrance music, and open the doors ready for your entrance.

Our registrars will welcome you and your guests, and begin the ceremony. The whole ceremony will need to be legally conducted by one of our registrars, though a friend or family member can read poems/readings.

You can have full personalisation of the ceremony (within legal parameters), with a choice of four ceremony scripts (or the option to write your own), up to three readings, personal vows, music and ring words.

Please click on the links below to see the ceremony scripts we use depending on the type of ceremony you have chosen:

• Simple marriage ceremony
• Simple civil partnership ceremony
• Traditional marriage ceremony
• Traditional civil partnership ceremony
• Modern marriage ceremony
• Modern civil partnership ceremony
• Romantic marriage ceremony
• Romantic civil partnership ceremony

If you are interested in writing a personalised ceremony, please see the links below to see the order and structure of a ceremony for you to use as a template:

• Marriage ceremony structure
• Civil partnership ceremony structure

Please note that the ceremony must contain the legal parts of the ceremony (the wording in bold in our ceremony scripts), and the wording must not be from a religious ceremony, religious texts, or contain religious messages.

We reserve the right to ask you to change the script if we feel it is not suitable for a civil ceremony.

The words you say do not need to be memorised as you will repeat them, a few at a time, after the registrar.

As civil partnership law is different from marriage law, there are no legal words you need to say, so if you would prefer to simply sign the paperwork with your witnesses you can.

The ceremony with no added personalisation takes around 20 minutes to complete, including the signing of the paperwork. If you are adding readings or personal vows, please allow 30-40 minutes for your ceremony.

We book our ceremonies with enough time before the next ceremony so that the couple can be interviewed, guests brought in, the ceremony conducted, the paperwork completed and some photographs to be taken, and the room cleaned and prepared for the next ceremony without couples feeling rushed.

Having said that, please note that while we may book ceremonies which start at, for example, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm, each couple should not expect sole use of the room for an hour until the next slot, due to the interviews, guest entrances and cleaning that needs to take place. All our booking costs include use of the room for the ceremony, the registrars’ attendance and one copy of the certificate, but we don’t book ceremonies for a particular period of time; we book for a ceremony start time.

If you wish to have pre-recorded music, please choose someone from your ceremony party to control the music, and bring a phone or tablet with the music on it. We advise that you download the music onto the device, rather than rely on streaming. The connection to the sound system is via Bluetooth. Our team will help your chosen guest to connect the device to our sound system.

You are able to invite live musicians, which need to be included in your guest number. If they require amplification, music stands or other equipment, they will need to bring that themselves.

Bagpipes and drums cannot be played inside the Town Hall, as they can be heard in other ceremony rooms, but they can be played outside the building.

Unfortunately, we are unable to incorporate religious music (whether words or music) into a civil ceremony, which must be free of all religious connotations. If you would like a song that mentions God or heaven or similar, but you don’t think it is a religious song, you can submit it on the form below and we will check whether it is acceptable. For example, “Angels” by Robbie Williams and “I Say A Little Prayer” by Aretha Franklin are not considered religious songs although they mention angels and prayer.

We will contact you if you need to replace your music choices.

You can choose to include up to three readings which will be read by your guests, and/or personal vows to each other. Your readings need to be kept to a 2000 character limit each, and your personal vows to an 1000 character limit per partner to ensure ceremonies do not overrun.

Registrars can only perform civil ceremonies, which must be free of all religious connotations, which means that the “Song of Songs”, or St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (“Love is patient, love is kind” etc.) cannot be read at a civil ceremony. If you have a reading that mentions God or heaven or similar, but you don’t think it is a religious reading, you can submit it on the form below and we will check whether it is acceptable.

Similarly, personal vows must not have any religious connotation, or be taken from any religious ceremony. The words ‘to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part’ are part of the Church of England marriage vows, and so you are not able to use them in a civil ceremony. You may like to consider different words for your personal vows with the same meaning, like ‘I promise to love, honour and care for you, to support you through good fortune and adversity, joy and sadness, as long as we both shall live’.

If you would like to include readings or personal vows in another language, please submit the original text and a translation so we can ensure they are suitable and non-religious. If the character limit means you aren’t able to submit both on this form, please send an email to registrars@islington.gov.uk with the translation of your readings/vows.

Other than religious content, which can’t be used, civil ceremonies must, by law, be ‘seemly and dignified’. This means that we reserve the right to ask you to change your reading or personal vows if we think they are unsuitable. It’s fine to include humour, but we will decline readings/vows containing adult language and/or topics. We will contact you if you need to replace or amend your reading/vows.

If you would like some more information on writing your own vows, please click here to see an article written by Elle, with advice from Islington Registrars, that may help you.

Even if your readings or personal vows are a secret or surprise, we still need you to submit them on the form below, rather than by any other method.

The exchanging of rings is a traditional part of a ceremony rather than a legal requirement. Some couples choose to exchange only one ring, some choose a different token personal to themselves, and others choose not to include this part of the ceremony at all.

You will need to choose two witnesses who will attend and sign to say they have witnessed the ceremony/signing. The size and layout of the schedule document that they sign means that you are not able to include more than two witnesses, and our staff are not able to act as witnesses.

The witnesses can be friends/family members, as long as they speak good English and are an adult. They do not have to bring any documents to the ceremony.

If either you or your partner requires an interpreter, that person must also act as one of your two witnesses.

At the end you will be announced as husband/wife and husband/wife, or as civil partners, and will sign the marriage or civil partnership schedule, the legal record of your union, with your witnesses.

Your guests will then be invited to congratulate you both as you leave the room together, and then they will follow you. You will then be able to take some photographs inside the Town Hall building if you choose. We don’t limit the amount of time you are able to have pictures, but we do ask that all couples are considerate of other couples who also want to take pictures, and be conscious of later ceremonies.

You can also have some photographs on the beautiful steps outside. We allow eco-friendly options like biodegradable confetti, rose petals, bubbles and sparklers outside the Town Hall, but not inside. Rice is not permitted as it poses health and safety risks with the stairs in inclement weather and attracts pigeons.

You are welcome to have a celebratory glass of champagne outside, just as long as you aren’t impeding the access of other ceremony parties.

While there is no parking on Upper Street outside the Town Hall, your booked transport (for example buses or taxis) will be allowed to stop there long enough for you and your guests to get on.

Ideally your transport should be there waiting for you as you all emerge from the Town Hall ready to whisk you away to your reception.

Following your ceremony, the legal details need to be inputted onto the national database before we can check and produce certificates, which can take up to 20 working days, as we conduct large numbers of ceremonies.

You will be asked on your ceremony day if you want the certificate to be posted to you, or if you would prefer us to contact you when it’s ready so you can collect it from Islington Town Hall.

If you need your certificate more urgently, we offer an express service which produces the certificate within 3 working days of the ceremony date.

To apply for the express service, please email us with your ceremony details, letting us know whether you would like your express certificate produced for collection from Islington Town Hall (£26.00) or posted to your home by special delivery (£33.85).

The additional fee will then be added to your ceremony balance. The express service needs to be requested and paid for at least 7 days before the ceremony date.