legal requirements

There are certain legal requirements for your Civil Wedding Ceremony.

• You must both be over 18 years of age.
• You must not be in a prohibited relationship. This means being married to someone else at the time or being directly related to each other.
• A Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM) document is the first legal step in preparing for your wedding. It needs to be processed a minimum of 30 days before a marriage can occur and has a life span of 18 months.
• You should produce your full original birth certificate and/or your current passport as well as photo ID when the NOIM is prepared.
• If either of you have been married before you need to produce the relevant court papers stating that the previous marriage is no longer valid.
• If you are widowed then you will need to produce the death certificate of your previous partner.
• For the ceremony you will need to nominate 2 witnesses who will be present at the wedding who are over 18 years of age and speak and understand English. In some cases when English is not the first language an authorised translator may be required.