Getting ceremony venue HSE approved...

mailforkev

Before I get involved with the HSE I just thought I'd see if anyone here has any experience of this.

We are getting married later in the year and have found a possible alternative venue for our (humanist) ceremony. This venue is currently not HSE approved for weddings.

So, first question, are there many hoops to jump through to get approval? Does it take much time/money to complete the process?

Secondly, as we are going the humanist route (they should be fully legal by then hopefully) and not having a HSE celebrant, does the venue actually still need the same approval? I'm just presuming it does.

Senna

Humanist have nothing to do with HSE, doesn't mater if its HSE registered or not. I wouldn't be too sure about humanist weddings in 2013. I asked would everything be ready for 2014 and they just couldn't give me an answer.

Gatica

People having booked weddings for this summer were saying that Humanists should be approved by then. I don't know though, especially since it sounds like Senna heard it from the horse's mouth.
The venue for a non-HSE wedding does not need to be pre-approved. However, someone on another thread did point out that it needs to be a public place or publicly accessible.

lazygal

All wedding ceremony venues, be they in a church or elsewhere must conform to the same regulations. I've heard of some people having spiritualist union ceremonies oustide but we were told that's not in line with regulations, the structure must be accessable to the public and be permanent in nature, something like that. You also have to be aware that any member of the public is entitled to attend the 'legal' bit of any wedding - friends of ours had a random nosy old dear at their civil ceremony who happened to be passing by and invited herself in, celebrant said there was nothing they could do.

I am attending a humanist wedding next month, its the full legal ceremony.

mailforkev

Thanks all,

lazygal wrote: »

All wedding ceremony venues, be they in a church or elsewhere must conform to the same regulations.

This is what I was assuming, that all legal ceremony venues (be they HSE, humanist or spiritualist) must adhere to some fixed standard. Good to hear pre-approval may not be necessary. The place we are thinking of is publicly accessable, wheelchair friendly etc. so should be grand. We have somewhere else sorted anyway if it's a no-go, this is just a possible alternative idea.

I know there is currently one humanist celebrant on the fully legal list with about a dozen more in line for it, hopefully in the next couple of months.

As for randomers walking in, I was at a wedding in the University Church on Stephen's Green a couple of years ago and a group of shameless Italian tourists came in with their cameras and walked right up the side of the church very close to the alter to have a gawk.

tatli_lokma

We were the first people to use our venue for a wedding, and so we had to arrange for the approval, but it really straightforward and simple to do. No real hoops to jump through - they give you the guidelines as to what is acceptable, you make sure your venue complies and then ask them to inspect it.

I hear what Gatica is saying about the requirements being different, but there seems to be mixed messages out there from the registry staff themselves - we were told that the venue, regardless of it being a religious, secular or civil ceremony must be in a permanent structure, open to the public and wheelchair accessible. Gatica seems to have been told different and had her wedding outdoors, so I really don't know what is correct. What is for certain is that it MUST be open to the public. If it were me, just to err on the side of caution, I would get the approval anyway, as then you are covered regardless.

mailforkev wrote: »

I know there is currently one humanist celebrant on the fully legal list with about a dozen more in line for it, hopefully in the next couple of months.

According to the GRO website, there are still no humanists listed as approved solemnisers. Having said that, this list appears to have been last updated in Feb 13, so maybe some have been added since then. I have attached it here (have had to compress it due to size).

Still, I would actually get written confirmation from the GRO that your celebrant is indeed on the list before making too many plans.

lazygal

AFAIK Brian Whiteside is the only Humanist Celebrant currently approved.