time frame to book wedding at register office?

how far in advance do you typically need to book to get married at a register office?

is an appointment needed well in advance or can you call and get one within a week?

i am currently on a fiance visa set to expire in mid November and due to difficult circumstances we weren't sure what we were going to do until just recently because of situations changing.

I think it depends on the registry office and what day of the week you want to get married. My DH and I got married on a Monday in a tiny little village in Derbyshire, and we were the only wedding that week! We booked that a few months in advance, but you might be able to get one soon depending on where you want to marry.

The most important thing that takes time to complete is the 'bans' or giving notice to marry. Once you have chosen where you are going to get married and made a booking for the ceremony, you must call the council in which you and your DF live, and make a booking to give notice of your intent to marry. You have to do this since you are subject to immigration control. 

You must have lived in the borough for more than 7 days before giving notice, which can be proven by producing council tax statements, utility bills, etc. You must also bring your passports/visas, and anything else they ask for.

Once you give notice, 15 days must pass before your ceremony can take place. You will have to go and pick up the certificates for marriage in person on the 16th day. You then take these with you on the day of your ceremony.

Please note that once you have given notice, you cannot change the venue, unless you go through the entire process again.

Make an appointment for giving notice NOW. I called my council (a highly populated borough in London) to make an appointment to give our notices two months in advance, and the first available appointment was a week AFTER my wedding. Needless to say, I freaked out and begged a lady in the Registry Office for an earlier appointment. Luckily, the woman in charge was a sweetheart and took sympathy on me and the fact that my family from the States had already purchased flights and all...

I'm not saying that you won't get an earlier appointment, just that this was my experience. I had not planned well ahead and found myself in quite a pickle.

Hope that this helps. Congrats on getting married!

After giving notice, an appointment that was easy to get, i waited three months to get married (the earliest available date). This was norwich.

Also if you have been previously married- there is time in which they have to check your divorce decree, and this can take weeks. This was something I wasn't aware of and had not factored into the equation.

I would suggest calling ASAP. My fiance and I are getting married in March and obviously we don't have a lot of time because of the visa. We are just now booking venues and when we just called the registrar for the area they only had 2 appointments left on our day!

Yes, definitely call as soon as possible - it varies greatly from place to place. I got married at the registry office in our village, and even though you would think it wouldn't have been busy, we had to book two months out because it was such a sought-after location. We ended up barely meeting our deadline, which is really stress-inducing (if you're as nervous as I am)

After we gave notice, the soonest available date was 6 weeks out, so definitely get the ball rolling now.

our appointment to give notice is on the 16th of October, the earliest available for the borough we live in....I am not sure if we specified a venue because I was not the one that booked it. Do you have to specify the venue at the time of booking or when you go and actually do it?

my visa is set to expire on November 14th I believe so we are pushing it pretty close...is it possible to get done in this time frame? I am a bit worried now.

We booked are appointment to give notice a few weeks ago and the first available time they had was for 5-6 weeks later.  This is London, so maybe it's different where you are.

After a run-around with the register office (the all said different things!) we FINALLY got a date for the ceremony (at the register office) for a month after we give notice (you have to wait at least 15 days between giving notice and having the ceremony).

Our borough's website says to book the venue before giving notice.  Some people at the register office said we had to wait until our appointment to give notice to schedule the venue (which totally contradicts their website) but we finally (after many many phone calls and emails) got someone to book us a provisional appointment.    So, we have that and it will be official after our appointment to give notice (assuming all goes well). 

Definitely best to get it sorted as soon as possible.    People may tell you different things, but we went with what their website said and kept calling, emailing and showing up at the register office to ask about it until it was taken care of.    I'm not sure how we would have done it if we were both working. 

I just called up to book our appointment, and in Southwark (London) the had appointments on October 12, so 2 weeks out. We opted for one 2 months out, though, so that we could have a Saturday appointment (since we're not in a rush).

They didn't mention anything about booking a venue, but the registry office we booked for the ceremony said we should mentioned them when we register intent. So I'm not sure what order it's "supposed" to be done in, but venue followed by registrar seems OK.