Wedding Forum - What do you think?...

Without wishing to offend others who are marrying in their local registry office, I'm sorry to say I just COULDN'T get married in OUR local registry office. I've seen the photos of others who have and it just looks like they are standing in a car park outside a rather drab council building (which, surprise, surprise they are!)
You have to do what is best for you financially though. Maybe all your photos could be done indoors with really nice floral decorations and such like? Or is your budget not your only concern here?

other*

im getting married at my local town hall i dont really think its where u get married thats important its the actual marriage that makes it special xxx

I'm getting married at a registry office. We couldn't justify spending that much extra money to have the ceremony at another venue. The price difference was just astonishing around here. So for us it's for budget reasons. But I'm not bothered. The building isn't pretty, but they've recently re-furbed the inside including the ceremony room and it looks really nice from what I've seen. Outside there are some nice gardens which in pictures I've seen of weddings held there look great (even in snow!), so we're happy with our choice. At the end of the day, you're getting married and personally, it doesn't matter to me where that happens as long we're man and wife at the end :-) x

I agree that it really does depend on the registry office

It definitely depends on the actual register office. We were going to get married in our local one in Leeds, as it is part of the town hall and has gorgeous rooms. We're now getting married in Gretna, but nothing to do with not wanting a register office as there are some lovely ones around.

NikkyPickles... im getting married in a Registry Office.... Ours looks nothing like a Car Park as you said...

Its off a main road, and has (as i saw when i went past yesterday) beauitful flowers around the entrance and flowers
all around, so it looks lovely!!

Lil Cakes.... It is not cheap to just get married anyway.. it has cost us £380 to get married in a Registry office... so
its up to you, but surely if you love your H2B it dont matter where you get married!! xx

wont it be the same fees for the Registrar wherever you get married? And you you will need cars to take you from the registry office to the reception venue? Check out your registry office and see how you feel and maybe speak to your venue if they could do you a discount on the room hire. If you dont ask, you dont get!

There are some lovely Registry Offices out there. Yes some are awful (like my local one!), but others are often in Town Halls or similar which can be lovely old buildings.

The fee savings can be quite significant. There is the standard fee of around £40 or so that everyone pays, but if you want a registrar to come out to a location other than the registry office, then that's where you then see additional costs of around £300 upwards.

Definitely go check out your local office, and also check coz in some areas you have the choice of more than one within your local council area - for instance I could have either used Northwich (ugly concrete building next to main road), or Chester (much nicer!) which are both under the same council.

And I would assume (although I don't know), you could actually get married in *any* registry office, but I don't know if there are extra costs if it's not the one in the area where you live.

Well, there's two main things to consider here. Firstly not all registry offices are nasty buildings, and this is all personal choice. Unfortunately ours is garishly decorated and looks like a multi-storey car park (which in reality is a couple of doors down!) and is approached through the heady scent of half a dozen curry houses. Secondly, there's the logistics of it all - many of ours guests are from out of town and would struggle to find our incredibly badly signposted registry office which is hidden on the outskirts of the towncentre. They would also all have to find somewhere to park as it has no parking and then travel around 10 miles to the reception venue afterwards. We would also then have the added expense of cars and transport for ourselves. So in terms of time, and cost (which becomes much of a muchness) and also added expense to our guests, we have chosen to marry at our venue. Honestly, I don't want to be worrying about travelling all over the place on our wedding day and losing some of our guests along the way as they take wrong turns!! Personally, it's easiest for us, but for some, it's easier and just as nice to marry at their local (and probably much prettier!) local registry office.

I really didn't want to offend brides choosing to marry in a registry office - unfortunately that's what I appear to have done!

I only have our local office to compare to, and while it's not as bad as JillDudley's sounds, it just wouldn't help to create the right memories for me. I want to remember my wedding day fondly, and photographs will play a big part in that. I want to focus on the love and friendship side of the marriage, not the bureaucratic legal side that could just be achieved with a few words and a signature and no feelings.

But at the end of the day it's down to your budget and your feelings and your aesthetics.

I have just found out that from January next year weddings in our area will not be held in the registry office but in a rather large yellow building on the promenade, called The Headland. Having only seen the concept pictures, it looks modern and stylish and will be a simple replacement for weddings to be held in the drab brown council building, but for exactly the same price. If it wasn't for the fact we've already fallen in love with and paid for our venue, the Headland would have been a possible option - a much cheaper option. Not all registry offices are bad!

for me i couldnt get married in reg office (dont like the ones round here) and it was really important to us to get married in our church where our kids were christened. i think it is a choice that only u can make really, if u are happy to get married in your reg office and its going to be cheaper win win, like it has been said at the end of the day its about who u are marrying not where u are getting married really good luck hun hope u can sort it out one way or another with out to much stress xxx

i originally was having civil wedding at venue, but after being hit financially and doubting whether the wedding would go ahead at all, we decided to scrap paying registrar £240.00 just to drive 5 mins to venue and opted for a register office wedding.

I think h2b was surprised that i dont mind getting married here, hes been married before and had the big white wedding and when we started planning ours i think, originally he wanted me to have the 'big day' but i can say i honestly do not mind getting married in a register office because i see it as i am marrying the man i am spending rest of my life with and to me the venue should not matter.

I also have the added bonus of my register office NOT being a drab council building and having photos taken in a car park. i have the availability of landscaped & manicured gardens and the actual ceremony room has recently undergone a massive refurb and looks really nice. the photo i had seen didnt do it justice and when i saw the room in person i was so overwhelmed i got quite teary!

at the end of the day if your budget doesnt permit you have a choice: get married when planned or postpone until you can have venue you want.
xx

our local reg office is alright if you want a big garage sign above your head for the photos, but i dont get on with the workers there had major rows with them over getting my daughter registered. So we decided to get married at our venue. Its all a matter of what you can afford as well.