Sam and Courtney Scholey’s dream wedding – a bespoke ceremony in the Oxfordshire countryside led by a celebrant who knew them – was everything they wanted. Except it wasn’t legal. So in April, they paid hundreds of pounds to quietly sign papers at a library in Buckingham. “For us, that day was as insignificant as possible,” Courtney told the BBC. “It was just the words we had to say to make it legally binding.”
The Scholeys are among a growing number of couples who say rigid wedding laws make getting married more stressful, expensive and less meaningful. But under new proposals announced this month – described by the government as the biggest shake-up of wedding laws in 200 years – couples in England and Wales could hold official ceremonies in unconventional locations, from forests to beaches, as long as a registered officiant approves the venue.
“Government proposes biggest wedding law shake-up in 200 years, allowing ceremonies in fields and forests.”
For Nicky Brown, 57, who wants to exchange vows in a wild corner of Wales with just her mother and her partner’s mother as witnesses, the news is welcome. “I’d be quite happy to get married in a field full of sheep,” she told the BBC.
Currently, a marriage or civil partnership must take place at an approved venue to be legally binding, and venues often control vows, headcounts and music. Authorised religious figures can officiate, but only in places of worship; registrars can conduct weddings but without any religious content; and celebrants cannot legally marry couples at all. The Law Commission concluded in a 2022 report that these laws – dating back to the 18th and 19th Centuries – were “complicated, inefficient, unfair and needlessly restrictive”. David Lammy, then deputy prime minister, said they had “not kept pace with the social and cultural changes that have shaped modern Britain”. He added: “Some feel forced to pay for two different ceremonies, one legal and one belief based.”
Yet some argue the sacred tradition of marriage is being perverted. For the Scholeys, the change would have spared them a second, soulless signing. Whether the new rules will pass without opposition – and whether fields full of sheep will soon be legally blessed – remains to be seen.