Advice for American getting married in Ireland

Egginacup wrote: »

The rules are very plain. Come to Ireland, along with your would-be spouse. If you are an Irish citizen then you can be married.

You don't have to be an Irish citizen to be married in Ireland.

ballsymchugh wrote: »

You can have some kind of ceremony on a saturday but you can't get married, as registrars only work monday to friday.

Civil marriages are celebrated Monday to Friday only, but no such restrictions apply to religious or humanist marriages.

OP, there's three kinds of marriage ceremony in Ireland - civil, religious and humanist.

A civil marriage is celebrated before the registrar, who is a paid official of the state. It can be celebrated either in a registry office, or by arrangement in another approved venue. "Approved" here means approved by the registrar. They keep a list of approved venues. Mostly, its the owners of venues who apply for approval, so they can market themselves as potential wedding venues. If you choose to celebrate your marriage in an approved venue, it's up to you to find (and pay for) the venue, and arrange a date that suits you, the venue owners and the registar who will attend to celebrate your wedding. Civil marriages are only celebrated Monday to Friday.

Religious marriages (I note you don't want one) are celebrated before a priest or minister of religion and, to a large extent, the rules of the church concerned apply to determine where and when it can be celebrated.

A humanist marriage is celebrated before a celebrant registered by the Humanist Association of Ireland. It's up to you to find a celebrant and fix a date with them. It's also up to you to find and pay for an approved venue for the celebration.

Regardless of which kind of wedding ceremony you want, you have to give three months' notice of your intention to marry to the registrar. He will then issue you with a "Marriage Registration Form" which sets out the earliest date on which you can marry (which will be three months after you gave notice). When you actually marry, you need to get your celebrant, witnesses, etc to complete and sign the form, and you need to then return it to the registrar who will record your marriage and issue you with a marriage certificate. Until you do this you're in the awkward position of being legally married, but not having a certificate to prove it.

People normally attend in person to give their three months notice to the registrar, but if you live abroad you can do this by post. If you do it by post you will still need to attend in person during the week before your intended marriage in order to receive your Marriage Registration Form, and to make a formal declaration that you are still free to marry (i.e. nothing has changed since you first gave notice that would prevent you from marrying).

There are registrars for every county in Ireland. You should give notice to the registrar for the county in which you intend to marry, so step one is to choose your wedding venue, choose a celebrant, fix a date and then contact the registrar for that county in sufficient time to give at least three months notice, with all your supporting documents, before the date of the wedding.