Planning your ceremony – Licenced venues

It will be up to your venue whether they permit pets. Our registrars are happy to conduct ceremonies where well-behaved pets are present.

Your ceremony will begin at the time you have booked with us, i.e. the entrance music starting and the couple entering the ceremony room. The registrars need to leave the venue 45 minutes after this ceremony start time to be on time to their next ceremony, so please make sure you are planning for this start time.

Your registrars aim to arrive at the venue at least half an hour before your ceremony start time, so they should be there when you arrive/are ready.

If you are seeing each other before the start of the ceremony, please both arrive/ be ready for your interview at least 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 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 venue. Once you enter the venue, the staff 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.

For weekend or bank holiday ceremonies, your registrars will be assigned 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.

If your ceremony is on a weekday, it will be conducted by one of our experienced registrars. We are unable to let you know in advance who your specific registrar will be, as there are occasions where substitutions need to be made due to unforeseen circumstances. Due to this, we are unable to offer co-ordination calls for weekday ceremonies.

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, in a private room, 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 arrive/ be ready 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.

Please be aware that our registrars are not able to interview partner/s in hotel bedrooms.

Following the interview, the registrars will take their places in the ceremony room/area, and the venue staff will bring you and your partner to the ceremony room/area 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.

Your registrars will ask the guests to stand, and ask the venue staff to play 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.

You can choose to include pre-recorded music or live performances into your ceremony.

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 reading/vows need to be kept to a 2000 character limit each 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’.

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 or join your guests. The registrar can direct your guests as you wish, for example ‘Please make your way to the courtyard to greet the newlyweds’ or similar.

Then the registrars will leave you to your celebrations!

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.