Hello, and welcome
I've updated this information on 9 June 2025
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| For Qian and Min, it was their lucky day 8-8-18 They married in the sunny cosy green room, overlooking the wintry Heart Garden. (I closed my garden and green room as wedding venues at the end of 2024) |
You're getting married... Wonderful! Perhaps you're wondering about what happens when you sign your certificates.
On your wedding day, you’ll sign three Certificates of
Marriage. So will your celebrant and also your two witnesses. You’ll sign the
certificates with your usual signature, as on your Notice of Intended Marriage.
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| Sasha signs three certificates of marriage as her new husband Rohan looks on. The Green Room - The Heart Garden Weston ACT Saturday 22 September 2018 |
Legal change of name takes place with the making of your
vows of marriage during your wedding ceremony. This means that, by the end of
the ceremony, if you – as bride, or groom, or both - have chosen name change,
then it’s already legally in effect.
There’s nothing more you need to do about this, but, if you
want to change things like your passport or your driver’s licence, then you
must produce evidence that your legal marriage has taken place. You need a Certificate from the ACT Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages. You apply for this online at Access Canberra.
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| Sasha |
After your wedding, your celebrant has two weeks to send
your papers to the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the territory
or state in which you were married. These days, I use scans, emailed to the Registrar's Office and the registration process can happen within a week. (But not always.)
To get evidence that your legal marriage has taken place, you
must apply for your Official (or ‘full’) Certificate from the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Apply online at Access Canberra.
You must include credit card payment in your application to
the Registrar.
When you apply, you fill in the full names that appear
on your Notice of Intended Marriage. They’ll also be on the marriage
certificate you received on the day of your marriage. This means – don’t use married names on your application
to the Registrar.
If you apply straight after getting married, you’ll need to
allow time for your marriage papers to be processed by the Registrar and
officially registered. (Remember here that your marriage is already legal –
it’s just not registered yet.)
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| Qian |
Next, allow about a week (or sometimes less) for the Registrar’s
Office to process your application, then allow a couple of days as your
certificate travels to you in the mail by registered post.
Because your certificate will be sent by registered post,
there must be someone home to sign for it. If there’s no-one home, you’ll get a
card and you’ll need to sign and collect from the post office.
The current fee for an official certificate in the ACT, with
registration number on it, is $74. This includes registered postage.
Personally, I like to focus on the certificate you take home
on the day. It needs to be a beautiful momento for you, so I ask you at our
meeting to choose the font you’d like me to use when I print it.
If you have Asian names, I’ll ask you whether you want your surname
to appear before your other names. The choice is yours.
The certificate I hand to you on the day will have a unique
number and this number will be recorded, but because it doesn’t have a
registration number, you can’t use this certificate as evidence of your
marriage for any legal purpose (like a licence application or work records).
As evidence of your legal marriage, you must buy an
‘official’ certificate from the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages.
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| Angela and Jon, just married, receive their certificate from Michele. Friday 28 September 18 at Lennox Gardens ACT |
You may be wondering what happens to the third certificate
that’s signed on the day. It’s in your celebrant’s register.
Some celebrants keep an electronic register but I still like
to use paper certificates in my folder. By law, I have to keep my register folder for six years, but
I just like to keep them. (Sometimes I press flowers in them from weddings.)
Because I’ve been celebrant at nearly fifteen hundred weddings, I have quite a
large library of registers!
I was asked at a wedding recently, why the witnesses signed
before the bride and groom. This is my preference. I like the witnesses to sign
first, then I sign, and then the newly married couple.
This plan works well for setting up the photos with just the
couple, signing at the end. Then, as the law requires, I hand the newlyweds
their certificate. (This is a nice chance for me to get a photo for my personal
collection.)
The guest who asked about the order of signing challenged me
about ‘How can they witness the signatures of the bride and groom, if they sign
before them?’ This is a common misunderstanding.
The answer is, that the witnesses certify that they witnessed a legal marriage take place,
not that they witnessed the signing of the certificates by the groom and bride.
If you would like me to be celebrant at your wedding, I’d be
delighted to be there for you both.
I specialise in small simple weddings, with any number of guests, on any day or night, at any time. I call them beautifully simple and simply beautiful. We have no registry office weddings in Canberra ACT, so I offer a perfect alternative.
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Micah and Marlon married at
Royal Canberra Golf Club
on 2 September 2018
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My fee for any wedding is $700.
There’s an email contact form here. Or please phone me on 0406
376 375 any day between 9am and 9pm, or text anytime, and let's talk about your wedding.
My congratulations to you both on your very happy plan.
Sincerely
Michele
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| Nazia and Nillarn married at the home of Nazia's parents in Macgregor on Saturday 22 September 2018 |
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| The rustic entrance to the Heart Garden in mid-Spring 2018 |
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| The Heart Garden in mid-Spring 2018. When the poppies, violas, rhododendrons and wisteria finish, the roses will come on. Masses of flowers on the large potted blueberry (mid-screen) mean a bumper crop this summer. |
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