Registrars
Coronavirus (COVID-19) - Prime Ministers Announcement
The Government announcement (11 May 2020) in the Recovery Strategy document : ‘Our plan to rebuild’ stated the aim to ‘permit small wedding ceremonies no earlier than 1 June 2020.
At this stage we do not know:
- How many attendees will constitute a 'small' wedding’
- The costs that will apply
- The locations where ceremonies will be permitted
- The content that will be expected to be included in the ceremony.
- The arrangements for ‘Notices of Marriage or Civil Partnership’ (The legal preliminaries)
- Any other restrictions or conditions that may apply.
As we cannot be certain or give advice on any of these aspects until we receive more information and instruction from the government we are not taking any provisional bookings for ceremonies based on this preliminary announcement.
On 23rd March the Prime Minister addressed the UK outlining further measures that are required to continue to manage the current coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The Government has now introduced new measures that require people to stay at home, except for very limited purposes and is also stopping all public gatherings of more than two people. In addition, the Government is stopping social events, including weddings, baptisms and other religious ceremonies. This will exclude funerals, which can be attended by immediate family.
Every citizen must comply with these new measures and further details on these can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
For the purposes of Civil Registration in England & Wales, in light of these new measures, the following guidance applies:
Births
- Birth registration appointments should now be deferred until we are through the current pandemic period.
- Customers should be advised that they can now make a claim for child benefit or universal credit prior to the birth being registered, where they have not been able to do so because of these measures.
Marriages/Civil Partnerships and Notices
- Marriage/Civil Partnerships will no longer be undertaken in line with the Prime Ministers announcement.
- Notices of Marriage and Civil Partnership will be deferred until we are through the current pandemic period.
As further updates are received it will be published on the Tameside Registrar website