What’s the Difference Between a Registrar and a Celebrant?

The difference between a celebrant and a registrar or officiant is one of the most commonly asked questions when it comes to wedding logistics.

What actually is the difference between the two roles?

Which one do you need at your wedding?

Can you have a ceremony led by both?

Luckily, it’s quite an easy topic to clear up. In this article, I’ll explain the difference between registrars and celebrants and give you all the information you need to decide how they could both be involved in your marriage proceedings.

What is a Registrar?

A registrar is a professional responsible for collecting and recording details of all births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships. They are employed by a local authority and conduct civil wedding ceremonies, which are non-religious and legal unions between two people.

Registrars have other civil responsibilities, but in the context of ceremonies, they are the people in charge of conducting, witnessing and recording a legally binding marriage ceremony. These legal requirements mean that their role in the ceremony is quite restricted, as are the elements that can be included.

What is a Celebrant?

A celebrant is a professional who creates, oversees and runs a range of different ceremonies, including weddings. Whilst some celebrants are linked to Humanist organisations, a lot of celebrants are independent and not linked to any religious or legal organisation.

Celebrant-led ceremonies are not legally binding, but instead provide a way to celebrate a milestone like a wedding in a personalised way. A celebrant will work with you to design a ceremony based on your ideas, preferences and values, with the freedom to include practically anything and hold the ceremony wherever you want.

The Key Differences Between a Registrar and Celebrant

Perhaps the core difference between a registrar and a wedding celebrant is that a registrar conducts legally binding ceremonies, and a celebrant doesn’t.

But there also also plenty of other differences that it’s good to understand before you make a decision between the two.

Here’s what you need to know.

A Registrar…

• Legally marries you
• Is employed by your local authority
• Follows a strict, pre-determined ceremony script
• Has a few options to allow for personalisation
• Performs the ceremony in a licensed venue or registry office
• May perform several different ceremonies in one day
• Is limited to a 20-minute time slot on specific days within office hours
• Typically meets you for the first time on the day of the ceremony
• Cannot include any spiritual or religious references or music

A Celebrant…

• Cannot legally marry you
• Works independently and is typically self employed
• Writes a brand new ceremony script for every client they work with
• Completely tailors your script to suit your preferences
• Can conduct your ceremony anywhere (within reason!)
• Will only perform one ceremony in a day
• Offers flexible ceremony lengths and can perform a ceremony at any time
• Arranges several meetings with you before the ceremony to get to know you better
• Can include spiritual or religious references, readings, rituals or pieces of music

Legal Considerations

A legal marriage ceremony needs to take place in a licensed venue or a registry office. So if you’re going to have a wedding led by a registrar, you’ll need to choose a venue that has a license and then find a registrar local to the venue.

For legal marriage ceremonies, you also need to give notice of your marriage at the venue no less than 28 days before the date of your proposed marriage. You have twelve months from the date you give notice to arrange a date for your ceremony.

You also need to have at least two witnesses present at your ceremony, who will sign the marriage certificate afterwards.

As I’ve already highlighted, the legal nature of a registrar-led ceremony means that you cannot include any music or readings with religious connotations. You do have the option to exchange rings, but other rituals might not be allowed.

Do You Need a Registrar and a Celebrant?

If you and your partner want to get legally married, you will have to do this with a registrar at some point. But there’s no reason why this procedure needs to be thought of as your ‘wedding’.

What many couples are choosing to do now is have a small legal marriage ceremony and then throw a wedding celebration led by a celebrant on another day. This means that you have the official stuff all sorted and can celebrate this occasion with family and close friends, and then get to enjoy another celebration with much more freedom and flexibility.

I don’t recommend that you try and have both a registrar and a celebrant attend a single wedding ceremony so that you can do both at once. Not only can this be really difficult to coordinate, but it’s hard to get a ceremony that flows perfectly when you need to include the legal aspects but are also trying to get creative around this.

So in answer to the question above, no, you do not need a registrar and a celebrant at your wedding. I suggest that, if you want to get legally married, you organise this ceremony on a different day to your wedding celebration, and get to enjoy two different events with your partner.