Courtney Scholey walked down no aisle, exchanged no rings, wore no dress. Her wedding felt nothing like a wedding — until days later, when she and Sam held a bespoke ceremony in the Oxfordshire countryside, led by a celebrant who knew them. It was their dream day. It was also not legally binding in England and Wales.
So in April, the couple spent 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.”
“Government proposes biggest wedding law shake-up in 200 years, allowing ceremonies in fields and forests.”
The Scholeys represent a growing number of couples who say rigid wedding rules make marriage more stressful, expensive and less meaningful. But new government proposals — described as the biggest shake-up of wedding laws in 200 years — would allow couples in England and Wales to hold official ceremonies in a far wider array of locations, from forests to beaches, as long as the location is approved by a registered officiant.
Nicky Brown, 57, told the BBC she wants to exchange vows in a wildly picturesque corner of Wales with just her mother and her partner’s mother as witnesses. “I’d be quite happy to get married in a field full of sheep,” she said.
Current laws require a marriage or civil partnership ceremony to take place at an approved venue, which often controls elements such as vows, headcount and music. Authorised religious figures can officiate, but — with few exceptions — only in places of worship. Registrars can conduct weddings but cannot include any religious content. Celebrants cannot legally marry people at all.
A Law Commission report in 2022 concluded that the marriage laws, which date 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. Some enter into a marriage that isn’t legally recognised. Others feel they have little choice but to marry in a way which doesn’t reflect their belief…”
For Courtney Scholey, the proposed changes would have spared her the indignity of a library signing. But she and Sam already had their dream — even if it wasn’t, strictly speaking, real.