07.02.20 | The Legal Bit
We were engaged 5 months before we booked our wedding and whilst that was relatively quick, we actually did nothing at all then sat down for one ‘wedmin meeting’ and decided on it all in one go. Family dynamics had me held hostage and forced my hand but the more we discussed the likelihood of having a ‘legal bit’ of the ceremony separate to a big party the more we realised actually, maybe this was exactly what we wanted. When we looked into bringing a registrar to our venue and it would’ve cost us an extra £600 quid it was a no brainer.
We knew for a long time before we were engaged that we’d be getting married in 2020 after being together 10 years, and we only had a choice of a January or February wedding before Jos started a busy cider selling year again. All our anniversaries are the 7th of a month so it was a done deal when I phoned the local registry office and they had 10am on Friday 7th February free as I wanted to keep it to the wedding weekend because I worried it wouldn’t feel' ‘real’ enough if we did it another time.
Getting legally married doesn’t have to be an expensive affair. We had to pay £35 each statutory notice fee each when we had our pre marriage interviews and then we paid £11 for each certificate we had - we went for two, one to keep here and one to keep at my Mum’s, should anything happen to our house. The only expense for our day was having to hire the biggest room at the registry office, fit for 100 guests, because our little tribe of 14 was too big for the free room.
A fortnight before our wedding ceremony we met with my colleague/our registrar and went through our ceremony options. It came as no surprise to anyone that we went for the bare minimum option for 99% of it and the whole thing from start to finish was over in 25 minutes. There are some thing required by law to declare/say when you get married but other than that, we were able to choose the sentiments of the registrar, what we wanted to say/how much and down to the finer details or whether or not we wanted to kiss and what we wanted to be announced as as we walked out.
On the day, we asked my brother and Jos’ sister to be our witnesses and Jos’ brother looked after our wedding rings and handed them over at the appropriate time. I wore a dress from New Look (similar here), my leather jacket and biker boots and Jos wore a t shirt and a blue suit from Primark (similar here). My Mum made my bouquet from flowers and foliage from the garden and two posies for my nieces. Jos’ parents were our photographers and took our post wedding snaps down at the beach.
It was exactly how we wanted it to be in the end. I worried slightly that it would be so informal that it wouldn’t feel ‘proper’ but with both our Mum’s bawling and saying our vows, it really felt like ‘something’. I wasn’t nervous, I didn’t have to walk down an aisle in front of people, the only guests looking at us were our closest loved ones and it meant we could 100% focus on us and the vows, and worry about the party later.
The more we talked about having a small intimate ‘legal’ ceremony the more we discovered it was exactly what we wanted all along. My hand might have been forced but in the end, just having our immediate family there and not being dolled up in front of 100 guests was just right for us. We didn’t even toy with the idea of having a blessing or a ceremony of sorts on our big party day - in fact, I really wanted to invite everyone as if it ‘was’ a traditional wedding and seat them all down an aisle….and then in place of us walking in we’d play a video on a big screen of us getting married the day before. Sadly, I suspected the secret would be spilled so instead, we told all our guests we were sneaking off to get hitched and invited them to join us for a big celebratory bash afterward.
One of the nicest things for me was doing it altogether. It never made sense to me to be split up, to spend the night before apart, to arrive separately, to have him waiting for me and now have a reassuring hand to squeeze if we felt a bit nervy tummy. When the person you’re marrying is the person that makes you feel most at ease, why would you not be with them in the build up to one of the potentially most nerve wracking times of your life? After it was all over, we’d had our snaps and been for brunch, we drove ourselves back to the cottages and had a cuppa and started doing jobs for the wedding.
For Jos, it was actually a bit of an anti climax in the end, to come back and it all be ‘over’ which I totally understood. But for me, it was actually really lovely. That drive home, just the two of us having quality time I am assured you don’t normally have on your wedding day, felt really normal and really not normal all at the same time.
I had always wondered if having a ‘legal part’ of your wedding would feel quite as special as doing a big party, the traditional wedding everyone expects you to do and having done it now ourselves - I couldn’t recommend it enough if the big do in front of a lot of people isn’t for you.