Research and analysis

RPC opinion: reforming weddings law in England and Wales (revised submission)

Updated 28 August 2026

Lead department: Ministry of Justice

Summary of proposal: in October 2025, the government publicly announced its intention to deliver the greatest overhaul to marriage law since the 19th century. The preferred option includes wide-ranging reform, involving primary and secondary legislation used in conjunction with non-statutory reforms to facilitate a clear legal framework governing weddings.

Submission type: options assessment - 29 July 2026

Legislation type: primary

RPC reference: RPC-MOJ-26165-OA (2)

Date of issue: 26 August 2026

RPC opinion rating

Fit for purpose

The options assessment (OA) sets out a proposal to modernise weddings law in England and Wales, including by shifting regulation away from approved premises and towards authorised officiants, permitting a wider range of legally recognised ceremonies and reducing some regulatory burdens on businesses. The OA estimates a central net present social value of £237.4 million over the 10-year appraisal period, compared with £136.1 million for the do minimum option.

RPC opinion summary

Rationale: Green

The OA clearly describes the policy intent and identifies problems with the current legal framework, including complexity, lack of flexibility, unequal treatment across religious and non-religious belief groups, risks of non legally recognised marriages, and burdens on couples, businesses and local authorities. However, the objectives remain high level and are not sufficiently specific, measurable or time-bound.

Identification of options: Green

The OA explains that the Law Commission considered alternative approaches across specific parts of weddings law, and that the department then assessed how these could be combined into policy packages. The OA carries forward 3 shortlisted options: do nothing, do minimum and the preferred option.

Justification for the preferred way forward: Green

The OA explains that the preferred option performs best against the assessment criteria, provides a coherent and simplified framework, removes regulatory and administrative inefficiencies, and has a higher estimated net present social value (NPSV) than the do-minimum option.

Regulatory scorecard: Weak

The OA provides a regulatory scorecard and monetised welfare, business and household impacts. It reports a central NPSV of £237.4 million, a business NPV of £101.5 million and a household NPV of £137.8 million. However, the OA does not provide an adequate equivalent annual net direct cost to business (EANDCB) estimate and does not sufficiently distinguish direct business impacts, household impacts, public sector impacts and transfers. This limits scrutiny of the scale and distribution of direct impacts.

Monitoring and evaluation: Satisfactory

The OA states that a post-implementation review will be conducted at an appropriate time within five years of the enactment of the weddings reform. It also recognises the difficulty of establishing causality because marriage numbers fluctuate over time and there may be no suitable counterfactual jurisdiction for quasi-experimental evaluation.

Summary of proposal

The department states that the government intends to modernise weddings law through comprehensive reform involving primary and secondary legislation, alongside non-statutory reforms. The department’s preferred option would shift the regulation of weddings away from buildings and towards authorised officiants. Under the preferred option, registration officers, Anglican clergy, officiants nominated by religious and non-religious belief organisations, independent officiants and, subject to ministerial decision, maritime officiants would be able to conduct legally binding weddings.

The OA states that the reforms would allow couples greater choice over the form, content and location of their wedding ceremonies. It also states that the reforms would simplify civil preliminaries, remove the 7 day residence requirement, allow couples to give notice in any registration district or online, reduce the number of civil registration officers required at civil weddings from 2 to one, and remove the requirement for venues to obtain local authority approval licences to host legally recognised wedding ceremonies.

The OA considers 3 options: business as usual, a do-minimum option, and the preferred option. The do-minimum option would shift regulation of locations from buildings to officiants but would not permit independent officiants to conduct legally binding weddings and would retain the requirement for 2 civil registration officers at civil weddings. The preferred option would permit independent officiants and would require only one civil registration officer at civil weddings.

The OA estimates a central NPSV of £237.4 million for the preferred option, with a range from £73.1 million to £461.1 million over the 10-year appraisal period. It also estimates a central business NPV of £101.5 million and a central household NPV of £137.8 million. The department states that the preferred option provides greater qualitative benefits by allowing couples to have legally binding ceremonies conducted by independent officiants and by reducing demand on civil registration officer resources.

Rationale

Problem under consideration

The OA sets out a clear description of the current legal framework and the main policy problems. It states that current weddings law is complex, building-based and restrictive, and that most legally recognised weddings must take place in registered places of worship, register offices or approved premises. It also states that current law creates different treatment across religious and non-religious belief groups and limits the ability of couples to have legally recognised ceremonies that reflect their beliefs.

The OA identifies a risk that some couples, particularly from minority religious groups, may have wedding ceremonies that are meaningful to them but are not legally recognised. It states that this can create significant harms when relationships break down, including limited access to financial remedies, weaker inheritance rights and increased vulnerability for financially weaker partners.

The OA also identifies regulatory burdens on couples and businesses. It states that couples face requirements such as giving notice in person, complying with the seven-day residence requirement, and paying for civil registration officers in some circumstances. It also states that venues wishing to host legally binding civil weddings must obtain and renew local authority approval, with associated fees and conditions.

Argument for intervention

The department states that government action is needed to simplify and rationalise weddings law, improve fairness and equality, reduce the risk of non-legally recognised marriages, and remove unnecessary regulatory burdens on businesses hosting weddings.

The OA also links the case for intervention to legal risk, including potential human rights challenges relating to the treatment of non-religious belief groups. It states that the current framework leaves government exposed to legal challenge because the law does not provide a legal route for ceremonies reflecting non-religious beliefs such as Humanist weddings.

Objectives and theory of change

The OA identifies intended outcomes including reduced risk of non-legally recognised marriages, simplified administrative requirements, greater flexibility and choice for couples, a more coherent legal framework, and lower regulatory burdens on businesses hosting weddings.

The OA includes a logic model setting out inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts. The logic model links legislative and non-statutory reforms to the authorisation and training of officiants, changes in ceremony types and locations, reduced burdens on businesses, and increased legal protection for couples.

However, the objectives are not sufficiently developed. The objectives are expressed at a high level (for example increasing choice, simplifying the framework, improving fairness), and these are broadly aligned with the problems identified. However, they are not framed as specific, measurable or time-bound objectives using the SMART framework. The department should develop the objectives, for example by adding metrics that could be used to measure the outcome of the policy.

These could include changes in the number and type of legally recognised ceremonies, the number of additional civil ceremonies undertaken solely for legal recognition, the number of businesses hosting weddings, the number of authorised officiants by type, and the costs faced by couples and businesses. This would help connect the rationale, options analysis, preferred option, and monitoring and evaluation plan.

Identification of options

Identification of the ‘longlist’ of options

The OA provides an account of how options were identified and developed. It explains that the Law Commission did not develop a single conventional long list of complete policy options, but considered alternative approaches within specific areas of weddings law before making recommendations for each component of the legal framework.

The department then reviewed those approaches and assessed how they could be translated into feasible policy options that met ministerial preferences, strategic objectives and the critical success factors for the policy.

The OA states that the critical success factors include strategic fit with policy objectives, value for money, supplier capacity and capability, affordability, legal coherence, deliverability and potential to reduce regulatory complexity and administrative burden.

It also explains that the department considered policy configurations including maintaining the current legal framework, partial reforms targeting specific elements of the system, limited reforms within the existing framework, and comprehensive structural reform.

The long list of policy approaches considered by the department, based on the Law Commission evidence, included options within the following policy areas:

• overall regulatory model
• civil preliminaries
• residency requirements
• authorisation of officiants
• non-religious belief organisations
• independent celebrants
• wedding locations
• outdoor weddings
• ceremony requirements
• registration
• religious-only marriages
• weddings in international waters

The department provides a qualitative narrative for each option to explain whether each option was taken forward and the reasoning for this.

Consideration of alternatives to regulation

The OA provides a clear explanation of why legislative reform is required. It explains that the current weddings law framework is complex, building-based and restrictive, and that the preferred option would require primary and secondary legislation, alongside non-statutory reforms, to establish a clearer legal framework governing weddings.

The OA also explains that the preferred option would relax existing regulatory restrictions, including by removing the requirement for premises to obtain local authority approval licences to host weddings. This means that, although the proposal requires legislation, it is largely deregulatory in its effect on venues.

The OA could, however, explain more clearly why non-legislative, voluntary or guidance-based alternatives would not be sufficient to meet the intended objectives, and explore whether they could be used to support the preferred option.

Justification for the shortlisted options

The OA carries forward 3 shortlisted options:

• option 1 is do nothing, maintaining the existing building-based framework and current categories of authorised officiants
• option 2 is do minimum, implementing limited reforms including removing some regulatory requirements for wedding locations and permitting religious and non-religious belief organisations to conduct legally binding weddings, but not permitting independent officiants and retaining two civil registration officers at civil weddings outside registration offices
• option 3 is the preferred option, implementing a more comprehensive reform package including an officiant-based framework, expanded venue flexibility, removal of unnecessary regulatory requirements for venues, and permission for non-religious belief organisations and independent officiants to conduct legally binding weddings

The OA explains that the preferred option was selected because it performs most strongly against the objectives of increasing fairness, simplifying the legal framework, increasing flexibility and reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens. The department also provides a clear explanation of the differences between options 2 and 3.

The OA also notes that a key consideration in the selection of the preferred option was the extent to which different reforms would reduce legal uncertainty and the risk of non-legally recognised ceremonies. While the department refers to this consideration in its assessment of longlisted options, its role in the decision-making process is not fully explained. The final impact assessment (IA) should set out more clearly how legal risk reduction informed the appraisal of options and the choice of the preferred package.

Small and micro business assessment and medium sized business assessment

The OA states that small and medium-sized businesses should be in scope because the reforms remove the need for businesses to obtain local authority approval licences to host weddings. It also states that small and micro businesses are estimated to make up 50% of businesses operating in the weddings industry, and that independent officiants permitted to conduct legally binding weddings are likely to be small or micro businesses.

The OA identifies that the final IA will revisit business impacts once the legislative proposal has developed further and more information is available. It also states that consultation will gather further evidence on how organisations in the weddings sector may be affected by current regulatory requirements and proposed reforms, including costs, operational flexibility and market participation.

The final IA should provide a more detailed assessment of the number, types and characteristics of small and micro businesses affected. This should distinguish between venues, independent officiants, religious and non-religious belief organisations, hospitality businesses and other suppliers in the weddings sector. It should also explain whether impacts differ by business size, whether any groups face disproportionate costs or benefits, and whether any mitigations are needed. The department should also conduct a separate assessment on medium-sized businesses.

Justification for preferred way forward

Appraisal of the shortlisted options

The OA provides monetised appraisal for the business-as-usual option, the do minimum option and the preferred option. It estimates a central NPSV of £136.1 million for the do-minimum option and £237.4 million for the preferred option.

There appear to be errors in the OA’s monetised appraisal tables, including apparent arithmetic, labelling and presentation issues, which the department should review and correct. For example, the department should reconcile component totals with table totals, ensure that equivalent rows are labelled consistently across tables, check that the same assumptions are applied across the do-minimum and preferred options, and ensure that table headings accurately describe whether figures are presented in units or £’000s. The final IA should include a fully quality-assured appraisal model and explain any changes made to the monetised estimates.

The OA presents the main monetised impacts for the preferred option, including savings from reduced registration officer attendance, reduced need for additional legal weddings, removal of premises approval fees and costs from location approval and reduced overseas resident spending.

The department should address an important asymmetry in the appraisal. It monetises the removal of local authority premises approval as a business saving, but does not fully cost the resource implications of the replacement duty placed on officiants to consider whether wedding locations are suitable.

The OA states that officiants will need to understand requirements relating to the dignity of the ceremony and the legal framework governing suitable locations, and that registration officers may charge a fee for considering whether a location is safe and dignified. However, the appraisal appears to assume that equivalent location-assessment activity carried out by non-religious belief, independent or religious officiants has no additional cost.

The department should explain why this is appropriate, particularly where the justification relies on existing venue visits or rehearsals, which may not be equivalent to discharging a statutory duty. The department should either cost this activity or present a sensitivity analysis showing the effect on the NPSV and the ranking of options.

The OA identifies the assumed 22.8% share of weddings conducted by independent officiants as a key source of uncertainty, yet this assumption is held constant across scenarios. The final IA should test lower independent officiant shares and demonstrate the effect on the NPSV differential.

Selection of the preferred option

The OA states that the preferred option would deliver a comprehensive reform package by permitting independent officiants, reducing the requirement for civil registration officers at civil weddings, removing premises approval requirements and enabling a wider range of legally recognised weddings.

The OA estimates that the preferred option has a higher central NPSV than the do minimum option. The department estimates a business NPV of £101.5 million, comprising £103.3 million of savings from removing premises approval fees and £1.8 million of reduced revenue opportunities from overseas residents spending less time in England and Wales. However, the OA states that an EANDCB cannot be provided because some costs, including training costs for independent officiants, are not yet estimated. The department should provide an EANDCB estimate, even if the impacts are not fully monetised.

Regulatory scorecard

Part A

Total impacts including non-monetised and distributional impacts

The OA reports a positive central NPSV of £237.4 million for the preferred option, with a range from £73.1 million to £461.1 million over the 10-year appraisal period. The OA states that the preferred option would generate social welfare benefits by increasing choice for couples, reducing the risk of non-legally recognised marriages, reducing costs for some couples and removing regulatory burdens on businesses hosting weddings.

However, the OA also identifies several unmonetised costs and benefits, including training and authorisation costs, potential officiant fees, sunk costs for businesses and wider benefits from increased choice, competition and reduced legal risk. The OA should explain more clearly how these unmonetised impacts have been considered in the overall assessment and whether they could materially affect the choice of option.

Impacts on businesses

The OA estimates a business NPV of £101.5 million over the 10-year appraisal period. This comprises £103.3 million of savings from removing licence approval fees for venues and £1.8 million of reduced revenue opportunities linked to overseas residents spending less time in England and Wales. However, the OA does not provide an EANDCB estimate.

The OA states that businesses are expected to benefit because they would no longer need to pay local authorities for approval to host weddings, which would reduce barriers to entry and particularly benefit small and micro businesses for which approval fees may have been prohibitive. The final IA should consider whether the reforms could have adverse effects on existing wedding venues, including any implications for businesses that have incurred sunk costs in obtaining and maintaining venue approval.

The department should distinguish direct business impacts from household impacts, public sector impacts and transfers. The department should provide a clearer account of which impacts are direct, which businesses bear costs or receive benefits, and how impacts vary by business size and sector.

The department should also provide further assurance that implementation and familiarisation costs, including staff training and updates to guidance and operational materials, are proportionate and robustly evidenced.

Impacts on households, individuals or consumers

The OA estimates a household NPV of £137.8 million over the 10-year appraisal period for couples getting married. Although the OA provides an estimated EANDCH of approximately £1.8 million in 2025/26 prices, the department should clarify how this has been calculated and reconcile it with the estimated household NPV, which appears to imply a substantially higher annualised impact. The OA should also correct the sign convention, as the EANDCH is entered as a net financial cost while the impact is a net savings to households.

The OA states that couples would benefit from no longer needing additional legally recognised ceremonies in some cases, reduced civil registration officer requirements, reduced registrar attendance at some religious weddings and more flexibility in where they give notice. It also identifies costs from paying civil registration officers to approve locations for civil weddings away from registration offices.

The OA also identifies important non-monetised household benefits, including reduced risk that couples enter non-legally recognised marriages and improved legal protection for financially weaker partners and children if relationships break down.

The department should more clearly separate direct household impacts, transfers, and impacts that may be passed between businesses and couples. It should also explain the distributional impacts on lower-income couples and couples from religious and non-religious belief groups.

Part B

Business environment

The OA states that the measure is expected to support the ease of doing business in England and Wales by removing the requirement for businesses to obtain licence approvals for venues to host legally recognised weddings. It states that this would reduce barriers to entry, increase competition and support innovation in the weddings market.

The OA also states that permitting maritime officiation, subject to ministerial decision, could increase the attractiveness of the UK flag for cruise operators and create revenue opportunities in the cruise weddings market.

The OA should distinguish more clearly between monetised, evidenced impacts and more uncertain or illustrative wider impacts. It should provide stronger evidence for claims about competition, innovation, market entry and regional economic benefits, or present these claims more cautiously.

Trade and investment

The OA states that the preferred approach does not impact international trade or investment in any way, except that maritime officiation, if permitted, could potentially increase foreign direct investment by cruise operators. The department should ensure that any claims about international investment are evidence-based.

Natural capital and decarbonisation

The OA states that the proposed measures do not impact the state of UK natural capital or the decarbonisation of the economy because they are primarily legal changes. It notes that permitting UK registered cruise ships to host weddings could lead to some increase in greenhouse gas emissions, but states that there is insufficient evidence to quantify this at this stage.

The department should ensure that any environmental impacts connected to maritime officiation are considered proportionately if that element is included in the final policy.

Monitoring and evaluation

The OA states that a post-implementation review will be conducted at an appropriate time within five years of the enactment of the weddings reform, including reviewing enabling statutory instruments. It states that monitoring and evaluation will consider the policy objectives, including simplifying the legal requirements to marry, enabling NRBO and independent officiants, offering couples greater flexibility and reducing the risk of non-legally recognised ceremonies.

The OA states that ONS data will be used to track the number and distribution of marriages by category of officiant, including religious, civil, non-religious belief, independent and maritime officiants. It also explains that establishing causality will be difficult because annual marriage numbers fluctuate and there may not be a suitable comparator jurisdiction for quasi-experimental evaluation.

The OA also suggests that, if resources are available, focus groups or surveys with couples and industry could be conducted to understand the reformed process, costs and any unexpected administrative burdens.

The monitoring and evaluation plan is proportionate for an OA, but the final IA should develop it further. The department should set out specific evaluation questions, indicators, data sources, collection responsibilities, timelines and criteria for success. It should also explain how unintended consequences will be monitored, including costs for officiants, fees charged to couples, impacts on local authorities, business entry and exit, and disproportionate impacts on small and micro businesses.