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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2021
The Law Commission has consulted on provisional proposals for reform of the law governing how and where couples can get married in England and Wales. This article gives an overview of those proposals, with particular focus on religious weddings, including Anglican weddings. It examines proposed changes to each aspect of the process of getting married, from the preliminaries to the people required to officiate at the wedding, the permitted locations and the rules governing the content of the ceremony. The article argues that the legal status of marriage itself is highly flexible, recognising a range of unions. The proposed reforms aim to reflect the diverse range of views about the meaning of marriage, and ensure that the way in which the law recognises a legally binding wedding fits with the many different traditions according to which religious groups celebrate the formation of marriage.
This is an expanded version of a presentation given by Professor Hopkins at the Ecclesiastical Law Society's conference on ‘The solemnization of matrimony: past, present and future’, held online on 20 March 2021.
2 Law Commission, ‘Getting married: a scoping paper’, 17 December 2015, available at <https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2015/12/Getting_Married_scoping_paper-1.pdf>, accessed 26 May 2021.
3 HM Treasury, Budget, 29 October 2018, para 5.52.
4 The full Terms of Reference are available on the Law Commission's weddings project page: <https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/weddings/>, accessed 26 May 2021.
5 Alongside the Consultation Paper, we published a summary, a summary in Welsh, an easy-read version of the summary and an at-a-glance overview, all available on our website (see note 4).
6 The prior question as to whether those groups should be able to solemnise weddings is excluded from consideration under our Terms of Reference and so we will not be making recommendations in that respect.
7 [2013] UKSC 77, [2014] AC 610.
8 The Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/411).
9 There are distinct requirements where one of the couple is not a British citizen and does not have EU settled status.
10 Again, there are specific rules governing those who are not British citizens or who do not have EU settled status.
11 See Consultation Paper, paras 5.122–5.129 and consultation question 24.
12 Pywell, S and Probert, R, ‘Neither sacred nor profane: the permitted content of civil marriage ceremonies’, (2018) 30 Child and Family Law Quarterly 415–436Google Scholar.
13 We made separate provisional proposals to enable weddings to take place in international waters on UK-registered cruise ships.
14 NB v MI [2021] EWHC 224 (Fam).