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I am a British citizen living with my partner in France, who is a French citizen. We would like to get married in England and then continue living in France after the ceremony. I’m not sure whether we are able to get married in England seeing as we don’t live there. My parents are still living in England, so if we needed to give an address we could use that. However I’m not sure how official the status needs to be and if I claim to live in the UK for the marriage whether this might affect my status in France. Has anybody else tried this?

Neil Roberts
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  • The information here https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships/give-notice might help, if you’ve not already seen it. – Traveller Sep 07 '21 at 23:19
  • Checked this paper; either they never thought about a British citizen living abroad wanting to just get married in the UK without living there, and there are problems if you actually try, or it’s no problem. For comparison, in Germany one of the partners must be resident in the area of the registry office where the wedding takes place. So one of the couple would have to be a German resident. – gnasher729 Sep 08 '21 at 06:55
  • Sorry, spotted this: “ You usually need to make an appointment to give notice at your local register office. You must have lived in that registration district for the past 7 days.

    You and your partner will need to give notice separately if you live in different registration districts. You do not have to do this on the same day.” So either you have to move to the uk for over a week, or you find out what the exceptions to “usually” would be. I’d suggest calling any UK registry office.

     – gnasher729 Sep 08 '21 at 07:00
  • Would living in the uk for a week or two affect your status in France? I only know the other way round; a French person with pre-settled status in the uk can leave the country for less than six months in any one year period. Whether that’s “living” abroad or long holidays in different countries doesn’t seem to be of any interest to the uk. – gnasher729 Sep 08 '21 at 07:07
  • Lots of countries require a short ‘residency’ period before marriage eg in Grenada it’s 3 days, in France it’s a minimum of 30 days AFAIK. People go on holiday to get married, IANAL but it seems to me in this context ‘resident’ = no more than ‘physically present’ for the required period – Traveller Sep 08 '21 at 14:37
  • You can do that in some countries. In Germany one of the couple must be a resident. In the UK, you must be LIVING there, I don't think a holiday would count, but living with relatives probably would. But then best to ask the people who actually make the decision. – gnasher729 Sep 09 '21 at 22:25
  • According to https://lowergrenofen.co.uk/how-to-get-married-in-england-if-youre-currently-living-abroad/ a British citizen can book a wedding date to marry in the UK from overseas, and has to have been in the country for a week (8 nights) before they can give legal notice. Giving legal notice must be done less than 12 months and at least 28 days before the wedding date. – Traveller Sep 28 '21 at 09:36

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