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10 » pink weddings magazine
COveR sTORy
or two, but speeches are more appropriate and best
kept for after the dinner. Some passages are rather
overused, so if you want something out of the ordinary
ask your registrar. The main thing is that it speaks to
you; some are just popular because they are good. You
can also write your own personal vows, which can be a
nice touch if you think you can manage to get through
them without completely losing it. We love to see tears
anyway, as will your guests!
We intend to be one of the first register offices in
the country to hold a same-sex marriage, if not the very
first. We already have one marriage booked for
midnight on 29 March, which has made the press and
will feature in a BBC documentary. You may have
already seen us in the two-part ITV1 documentary
Births, Deaths and Marriages
which was broadcast in
February. Although the Old Marylebone Town Hall has
closed for refurbishment, we are now doing weddings
at the 120-year-old Mayfair Library. We also have nearly
150 venues to choose from throughout Westminster.
For more information about planning your same-
sex marriage in the City of Westminster, visit
www.westminster.gov.uk
that make you married, whereas with a civil partnership, it
was the signing of the document that legalised the union.
In the first sentence you declare that you are free to
marry and the second is the actual marriage vows. Some
of our administrative forms are being amended but the
official record, the marriage books themselves, will remain
the same – since gender is not actually mentioned. It will
be wonderful to see a same-sex couple’s marriage on the
same register page as an opposite sex couple. Registration
is a great leveller; the marriage of a royal would be on the
same page as a bricklayer.
InWestminster we have a choice of standard
marriage ceremony scripts. Registrars probably suffer
from being stereotyped as acerbic spinsters; po-faced
humourless monoliths of bureaucracy. Our job is to
ensure that the due legal processes are followed and
adhered to, but hopefully here at Westminster we strike
the right balance of dignity and humour in our weddings.
Couples are welcome and encouraged to personalise
their ceremonies. The only proviso is that if you are
booking a civil wedding you cannot, by law, include any
religious content in the wording or any religious
artefacts in the room. You can have guests do a reading
‘We intend to be one of the first register
offices in the country to hold a same-sex
marriage, if not the very first.’