Costs of Registry Office vs Celebrant In Venue

random_banter

Hi all, I've scoured the search results for this answer but nobody has discussed it in detail -

I was wondering if anybody can shed any light on the total costs of registering to marry and doing the ceremony in a registry office vs. having a celebrant (e.g. a humanist) come to a venue to perform the ceremony?

Context: we have booked our venue but we are trying to get all this organised in just over 6 months, we will have around 100 people for the day - we were warned that it could be hard to get a humanist celebrant for the day with the covid backlog etc. And we were also warned that it would cost a lot more to get e.g. a humanist celebrant there on the day. So we were thinking of trying to marry in a registration office beforehand and have a friend perform the 'ceremony' on the day. Of course, I have also been warned to get the notification appointment in soon because of the backlog at the registry, too.

Does anyone have any experience of doing the full marriage in the registry office? If you notify to marry, do you pay a 200 euro fee and then another fee for the ceremony itself in the registry office later?

I would like to apply for the marriage notification appointment ASAP in any case, as I know there are a lot of delays now, but it seems you have to tell them when you apply if it's going to be a civil marriage or secular marriage - is that correct? If so I'll need to hold off until I can understand the difference in costs and we make a decision - and see if we can get a celebrant to the venue.

Thanks in advance all :)

cornflake1

We just booked the notification appointment this week and the next available date was November 7 and the fee is 200 euro. We booked the ceremony in the registry office for a few months later and there is no additional cost. We did also contact a humanist and their fee was 500 euro.

Edited: they did ask if it was civil, religious or secular but I got the impression that it's no big deal to change your mind on that at the actual notification appointment.

Faith

I believe that if you get married in the registry office in a civil ceremony, it’s covered under the €200 fee. If you get a civil registrar to come to a location, it costs extra but I’m not sure how much.

A humanist celebrant is totally outside the civil arena so they charge their own fee.

random_banter

Thanks both for your responses.

We decided to go with the notification appointment and a humanist society celebrant for 450 euro: the reason being we would have had parents with us at the registry office had a dinner afterwards, and had to take time off work to do that. We figured having a celebrant at the wedding venue we have booked instead would work out around the same price.

The whole thing was straight-forward once I got my head around it.

Best of luck with your wedding @cornflake1 - our notification appointment is the same day. Maybe we will see you there. Enjoy!

cornflake1

That makes sense! Best of luck to you too @random_banter.