Decision details

Couples are required by law to give a notice of marriage in the area where they live to allow them to get married in any Register Office, Approved Premise or Non-Conformist Church. A notice of marriage is only valid for 12 months from the date the person gave their notice and therefore the marriage must take place within that 12 month period. Both parties have to give a notice and the statutory fee for this is £35.00 each.
On the 23rd March 2020 the Prime minister announced that all marriage and civil partnerships were to be suspended until further notice.

Bury Register Office have rearranged ceremonies to take place within the Borough of Bury for later this year 2020 and also in to next year 2021 but unfortunately this will mean that there will be notices that were given, which will expire before the marriages take place and therefore new notices will have to be given to allow the postponed ceremonies to take place.

In addition to the ceremonies within the Borough of Bury couples have also given their Notices for ceremonies outside the Borough of Bury and they have also had to rearrange new dates with that particular Register Office which will also require new notices to be given for the new date. Some Councils have cancelled ceremonies till the end of September 2020 forcing couples to rearrange to next year.

All affected couples have completed the legal preliminaries and have also paid the statutory fee to the Council previously.

After consulting with the other Register Offices in Greater Manchester all Councils are waiving the new notice fee for anyone affected by the pandemic this includes Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside, Trafford, Stockport, Wigan, Bolton and Salford. It is also appears that most authorities within England and Wales will adapt this approach.

At the time of writing the number of new notices that are required to be given at Bury Register Office is 613.

This number may increase depending upon how long ceremonies are suspended.

In terms of financial implications, although it would appear that income next year will be lower as people have paid up front for the cost of their ceremonies, we are capturing the financial risk of loss of income now and will still be obtaining the fee for each of the ceremonies we perform, this won’t be affected and by waiving the notice fee, there would be no real cost implication to the Council as this fee has already be paid.