Congratulations on your engagement. One of the first things that many people do is to think what kind of wedding they would like and then book in a date and a venue. Along with this is the selection of your celebrant. This is a personal choice and ensuring that you get along with them is crucial. When you select your celebrant there are a couple of things that they will take you through in terms of the legals and the paper work that needs to be completed.

One of the first documents that will need to be completed is the Notice of Intention to Marry. This is a document that I as a Celebrant can help you work through and it is something that I will need to authorise (or i can help provide you with some alternatives if we are not able to meet up). As long as you are happy to, I encourage you to email myself the required information in advance, I will enter the information into the system for Birth’s Deaths and Marriages / Service Providers Portal, which then will carry all the details through all the documents required to complete the marriage ceremony.

In short here is some information / requirements that need to be met to be legally married in Australia:

• not be married to someone else
• not be marrying a parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother or sister
• be at least 18 years old, unless a court has approved a marriage where one party is aged between 16 and 18 years old
• understand what marriage means and freely consent to marrying
• use specific words during the ceremony
• give written notice of their intention to marry to their authorised celebrant, within the required time frame. (Source Birth Deaths and Marriages)

To aide in the process of completing the notice of intention to marry, some of the documents that I will need to sight the originals of are :-

• Original birth certificate

• Current drivers licence

• If born outside of Australia – a current passport

• If you have changed your same – official proof of the name change

• The years of the previous marriage/s

• If there has been a previous marriage, proof of dissolution of marriage

• The years of the previous marriage/s

• If children born within the marriage – their dates of birth

• With the death of a previous husband or wife – original death certificate is required.

  • The years of the previous marriage/s -If children born within the marriage – their dates of birth

• All documents must be in English. If not please contact myself for advice as to how to proceed.

• Are both your parents still alive?

• What is your current residential address?

• What is your usual occupation?

• Do you need an interpreter?

During our conversations to go through the documentation and notice of intention to marry I will also give you a document called “happily ever after”. This document outlines the obligations and also consequences of legal nature of the agreement you are entering. It also talks about marriage education and counselling and where to find out more information (I do have more detailed information about this for service local to the sunshine coast). This is a document that I am required to go through with you in terms of the information available and obligations.

A notice of intention to marry is to be completed at least one calendar prior to the planned date of marriage and it is valid up to 18 months.

In another blog i will chat about the Client Services Agreement, which is another key document that needs to be reviewed.