Marriages

In Moray, there are a wide variety of suitable venues for conducting marriage ceremonies.

Civil Marriage Ceremony

Our registrar’s office has a marriage room available in Elgin. Alternatively, your civil ceremony may be held at any other venue agreed between you and your partner, the senior registrar and venue owner. Should you choose a venue out with the Moray marriage rooms, please contact the registrar to check availability before finalising any booking.

Religious Marriage Ceremony

A religious marriage ceremony may be conducted by a minister, clergyman, priest, pastor or any such person entitled to do so under the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977. In addition to consulting with the chosen officiator, couples must also contact the registrar.

Legal Documents

Prior to all marriages – both religious and civil – you must submit Marriage Notice Forms (M10) to the local registrar. Marriage notice forms can be viewed, downloaded and printed with accompanying notes from the National Records of Scotland, see below for links.

Marriage Notice Form Guidance Notes and Forms  Marriage in Scotland (RM1) 

If you do not have facility to print then you can collect marriage notice forms from any registrar’s office in Scotland. The registrar can provide more information on fees and a form for the notification of witnesses’ names and addresses.The minimum period for lodging marriage notice forms is 29 days before the date of your marriage. The maximum period is three months.

Along with the marriage notice forms, you should both provide:

• your birth certificate;
• proof of residency (eg. utilities or council tax bill – dated within the last three months);
• evidence of your nationality (eg. passport) – if you are not a British citizen or were born after 1 January 1983;
• certificate of divorce or annulment or a certified copy decree. A decree of divorce granted out with Scotland must be absolute or final. A decree nisi is not acceptable if you have been married before;
• the death certificate of your former spouse, if you are a widow or widower; 
• a Certificate of No Impediment issued by the competent authority, to the effect that you are free to marry – if you are domiciled in another country;
• marriage fees.

Please note: if any of these documents are in a language other than English a certified translation in English must also be provided.

Do not delay giving notice simply because you are waiting for any of the documents to come to hand. The documents may be supplied later but it is critical that they are made available to the registrar before the marriage.

All certificates must be originals – no photocopies – and all documents apart from the Certificates of No Impediment will be returned to you. In most cases these forms, documents and fees will be handed personally to the registrar but arrangements can be made for postal delivery.

Further information is available from any registrar’s office in Scotland and in the information leaflet Marriage in Scotland (RM1) (PDF, 43kb) available from the National Records of Scotland website.

More detailed information on the regulations covering getting married in Scotland are available from the National Records of Scotland.

Frequently asked questions 

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