Congratulations – you’ve decided on a celebrant led wedding! One of the biggest barriers to couples choosing a bespoke, celebrant led ceremony that feels authentically them is the legal side of things. I am firmly of the view that the day you put on your best clothes and stand in front of your family and friends to commit to one another is absolutely your wedding day. That being said, there can be this strange disjointed feeling – what is the day we were ‘really’ married? I’ve had to think twice when filling out paperwork to put down my registry office day rather than our actual wedding day!
Well, marriage reform is on the way! This has been an exceptionally long time coming. I used to live in Edinburgh, and naively thought that people could get married pretty much as they wished, given Humanist celebrant-led weddings have been legal in Scotland since 2005. It wasn’t until I entered ‘wedding season’ of my life (hello 30s) I realised that actually, everyone had to get married in a registered venue and the legality was tied to the venue, not the person. It’s no wonder weddings in England are prohibitively expensive!
However, it runs much deeper than this. I am a fierce advocate that people of all faiths and none should be offered the same rights and protections. Marriage reform doesn’t just affect Humanists. My friends that are Muslim have also had to go and do the 2+2 in a registry office to make their marriage legal, and the same applies to many faiths. The Church is given a seniority in the UK that just doesn’t reflect how most people who live here see our multicultural society.
The frustrating side of this story for campaigners from Humanists UK is that not only does the government have the legal mechanism to enforce this, they have wide reaching support from both religious and non-religious groups. A High Court ruling in 2020 ruled that the lack of recognition for Humanist weddings was discriminatory but gave the government time to resolve this through marriage reform, and same-sex marriage reform in 2014 (which Humanists UK campaigned heavily for) gave the UK the government the power to grant legal Humanist marriage without secondary legislation – yet it still hasn’t happened. That being said, there is reason for optimism!
In October 2025, the government committed to legal marriage reform! (This was a big step forward, albeit a little frustrating given technically they have had the powers to make Humanist marriage in the UK legal since 2013. Humanists UK continues to push the government to implement the law now).
July to September 2026 – the government is currently completing a 10-week consultation – the Humanists UK website has plenty of information about how to get involved!
Projected earliest implementation is 2027-2028 – meaning accredited Humanist celebrants will be able to take ceremonies anywhere! (More information to come on whether this will be all celebrants, or specifically trained celebrants such as in Scotland. A really safe bet if you are getting married in 2027/2028 is to book a celebrant trained and accredited by Humanists UK, so if the law changes before your ceremony, you won’t need to go and do the legal part!
But until this happens, I would encourage anyone thinking about having a bespoke, humanist ceremony to do so – and think of the legal day as a bonus opportunity to celebrate while completing an administrative task. After all, we all know the registration of a birth or a death is an entirely different experience to a funeral, Christening or naming ceremony. Whether you choose a double celebration, to treat it as a glorified meeting, or somewhere in the middle, your wedding day is the day you put on your gladrags and made those promises.
And one of the big ways you can help to make Humanist weddings legal in the UK? Have one! Whenever we carry out ceremonies, we keep a log of them with Humanists UK, and this really helps to put pressure on the government when demand increases.
You can see more about the Humanists UK campaign for legal Humanist weddings in the UK here https://humanists.uk/campaigns/current-campaigns/humanist-marriage/