After you have chosen your venue, the next step in your wedding planning journey is to book your wedding ceremony. As a licensed venue, you can choose to have a legal civil ceremony at Treseren, or a celebrant led ceremony.
If you are choosing to book with a wedding celebrant, then you can visit our ‘what is a celebrant ceremony’ blog to find out all the details.
If you are planning a legal non-religious ceremony, then keep reading for your step by step guide to civil ceremonies.
Step 1 – Booking with the Registrar
If you wish to organise a civil ceremony, to enable the legal part of your marriage, you will need to book with your chosen venue’s local registry office. For Treseren, this is the Cornwall Registry Office – on 0300 1234 181. You will be booking a Distinctive Ceremony held at a Licensed Venue and you will be asked to pay a non-refundable booking fee, with the rest of the fee due three months before the ceremony date. The 2024/2025 pricing is £697. The team are really helpful and will be happy to guide you through the process.
You will be offered a choice of times for your ceremony depending on availability. To enable the best flow of your day, we recommend opting for a ceremony at 2pm, so you can savour a leisurely breakfast and time to enjoy your morning getting ready. If you would like to go to the beach for beach photographs, we recommend not choosing a time later than 2pm in the summer, and 1pm in autumn-winter months for your wedding ceremony time so that you do not have to rush the afternoon and beach experience before returning for private dining.
Step 2 – Give notice
Once the registrar ceremony time is booked, you will also need to book with your local registration office to give notice of marriage, which has to be done within a year of the date of your wedding, but no later than 28 days ahead of your ceremony date.
You will need to take some identification documents with you to this appointment – it’s best to check with your registration office exactly what you will need.
If you are not based in the UK and want to book a civil ceremony at Treseren, then this is absolutely possible but there will be some extra steps involved. There are different options depending on your scenario and we would be delighted to guide you through the process. We have been lucky to host a number of international weddings at Treseren!
Step 3 – Planning your ceremony
Once you have booked your ceremony, you will receive a booklet in the post which details the different elements that you can include in your ceremony. Whilst the ceremony will include legal wordings that can’t be changed, you are also invited to add bespoke elements to make the ceremony unique to you. You can include personal wedding vows, guests may want to say some thoughtful words or you may even want to include a special wedding ritual such as ‘sand blending’ or ‘tying the knot’.
Alongside these custom elements, you will choose from a selection of legal vows and declarations as well as choosing a minimum of two of your special guests to act as your legal witnesses for the signing of the marriage schedule, although you may choose to include up to six witnesses. For elopement weddings, we are delighted to witness your marriage.
Step 4 – Connecting with your registrar
A month before your wedding date, the registrar that will be conducting your ceremony will get in touch and arrange a phone call to go through all of the details of the ceremony. This is a really great opportunity for you to get to know each other and to decide together on the exact flow of the ceremony. We have a set of lovely registrars who regularly come to Treseren so you will discover that they know us well and understand the intimate and relaxed atmosphere of a Treseren wedding. They will be excited to learn about your love story and will be more than happy to include any special elements – right down to colour coordinating if requested!
Step 5 – Choosing your music
This is often one of the last things we receive from a couple as it can be hard to decide (and agree!) on your ceremony music. We require one track for the start of the ceremony, three for signing the register and one song for the end of the ceremony. We are in control of playing the music for you at the correct times.
Of course, you may choose to book a live musician and they will ask you for your song choices.
Step 6 – The Big Day
On your wedding day, the registrars arrive 45 minutes before the ceremony, and your wedding coordinator will park and greet them. Your ceremony registrar will be accompanied by a colleague who will be recording your marriage.
The registrars will then need to speak to you both individually. This is to make sure that all the details for the Marriage Register are correct – you do not need to bring any documentation with you on the day of the ceremony, the registrars will already have everything they need. They will also talk you through the ceremony, check you are happy with all the plans and make note of any last-minute changes.
During planning we will arrange with you where these meetings will take place and we will bring the registrars to you.
Whilst you may choose to add additional custom elements, the basic format of the ceremony will be –
Music for the start of the ceremony
A welcome and introduction
The definition of marriage according to the law
Declaratory words
Contracting words (vows)
The exchange of rings
Any personal vows
Formal announcement that the couple are married
The signing of the Marriage Register
Final words from Registrar
Walk back down the aisle – confetti time!
Your ceremony will take approximately 30 minutes and after announcing you as officially married (and making sure the confetti is thrown ‘up’ not ‘at you’ of course!), the registrars will quietly slip away and leave you to enjoy your drinks reception.
Photos by Sofie Michelle and Lyra and Moth
