Hi all! Can anyone tell me the difference between a civil ceremony and...

Religion is the main difference

Religion is the key difference. Also it's a longer ceremony too with hymns and it usually costs more than registery office and hotel ceremony. Depending on your church etc.

Church wedding is religious and in a church. Civil is performed by the registrar (or a celebrant) and can be held at any licensed premises (I believe special licenses can be obtained for odd places). The Civil ceremony must have no religious readings or otherwise in it (the registrar stressed this several times when we booked our wedding).

Costs and religion

For me, I like the feel of a church wedding - but I would personally not want to make religious vows as I don't believe so for me it would seem false.

its all down to religion although we got married in a church and had no hymns etc as not religious we just had a few sayings from vicar and one preyer for those who couldnt be with us on our special day we even lit a candle in memory of them x

It's pretty hypocritical to use a church and not be religious to be honest.

For me, having the ceremony in the church was important as it was the one I'd grown up going to. Having a church ceremony just because it looks nice feels very hypocritical to me. Cost wise it was £650 for the ceremony, banns in this church and our local, organist and the verger.

Church is religious,civil isn't

We had a humanist wedding which is non religious and told our love story of how we met and fell in love.... it was very personal and romantic. Good luck with your upcoming wedding x

Hi a civil ceremony is non religious and much shorter :)

Basically religion. In a church hymns and religious readings. In a civil ceremony you aren't allowed hymns, religious music or readings.

I think churches are cheaper than civil ceremonies, I'm having a civil ceremony it costs £25 booking fee to save the date, £35 each to do legal notice of marriage and then £435 for the Registrar(Durham council) and then it cost us £350 to hire the ceremony room , and the rest was on the reception etc as I have a package deal with my venue as I'm having my whole day there

Some of the prices quoted here for church weddings are extortionate. We had a church wedding. And wasn't as dear as some of the quote being quoted here

We had 322 of family & friends come to our wedding in our local village church , so David was able to walk to church stopping off on the way at the local pub for a drink . David had music he loved played for an hour in the church beforehand . For the service we had a video " Celtic Woman - Amazing Grace " played so beautiful on the screen above ...... As well as the cost also covering the church hall where we had a pop up Vintage Cafe for cakes & drinks , we had a unity candle lit by both of us coming to £595 ...... Civil ceremony can be either at a registers office or outdoors by a wedding celebrant where you don't need to include your spiritual life if you don't want to.....
Warm wishes for your special day ,
Love Sarah

Civil ceremony is shorter

Bex Waldron is good to answer this one :)