9758fc66

How to legally get married in Ireland

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 20:58:26 GMT

A Simple Guide to Getting Legally Married in Ireland

If you’re planning to get married in Ireland, there’s one important thing every couple must do:

give at least 3 month's notice to the Government’s Civil Registration Service (HSE).
Here’s the process explained in simple, stress-free steps:

1. Book your appointment with the HSE

Every couple, Irish residents or visitors must contact the HSE to make an appointment to give a

Notification of Intent to Marry .

You can:

Book online , or
Call any HSE Registration Office to arrange a time - ringing is always better in my opinion
Both of you must attend this appointment in person .

If you live abroad or cannot travel due to medical reasons, you can request to give notice by post (email) .
However, you will still need to meet a Registrar at least 5 working days before the wedding once you arrive in Ireland.

2. Prepare your documents

The Registrar will send you a list of documents you must bring. These normally include:

Everyone must bring one of these photo IDs:

Passport
EU National Identity Card
Refugee/Asylum card

(Your ID must be in date)

You will also need:

Long-form birth certificate
Proof of address (dated within the last 3 months)
PPS number (Irish nationals only)
Divorce decree (if previously married)
Adoption certificate (if applicable)

If any document is not in English, you must provide a certified translation .

If you don’t speak English, you may bring an interpreter.
If you use one at your appointment, you must also have one at your marriage ceremony.

If your birth certificate was issued outside Ireland, the UK, or the EU , you may need an Apostille stamp. Check with the HSE when booking your appointment.

3. Fill in your Data Capture Form

Before your appointment, you’ll complete a form with:

Your names and addresses
Parents’ names
Witness names
Ceremony details (date, venue, celebrant’s name, etc.)
If I am marrying you, you put my name as Solemniser & tick secular box

4. Attend the HSE Appointment

At the appointment, the Registrar will check your documents and confirm that you are free to marry. You pay the €200 fee at the appointment.

If everything is approved, you’ll receive your MRF – Marriage Registration Form - aka The Green Folder!
This is the legal document that must be signed during your ceremony.

If I am marrying you, you bring the green folder with you on the day. I sign it, you sign it, and your witnesses sign it too.

If a HSE Registrar is performing your ceremony, they keep the MRF for you until the wedding day.

5. To ensure your legal ceremony goes without a hitch please remember:

You must complete the HSE notice process.
You must bring the MRF to the ceremony.
Without the MRF, I can't legally marry you.

If you would like any help or have any questions about getting married in Ireland, please get in touch. I am always happy to guide couples through this process - celebrantdonnamcmillen@gmail.com

A Guide on Writing Your Own Wedding Vows

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 17:55:03 GMT

Hints & Tips to Help You Write the Perfect Vows

Writing your own vows adds a personal, unique and heartwarming element to your ceremony. It allows you both to declare the promises you are making to each other, in front of the people you hold nearest and dearest.

It may seem intimidating at the start, as there are so many things that you love about your other half, that you dream about for your future together and promises you want to make to them. My advice is to follow your instincts, discuss the tone you want for your vows together, decide if you want to add some humor or keep it romantic and use my hints and tips as a guide.

Aim to have your vows finished at least three weeks before your ceremony. Do not leave them until the last minute. A lot of the other planning seems bigger and more important, such as guest list changes, dressing your bridesmaids and groomsmen and your venue. However, your vows are the essence of your ceremony and need careful consideration.

To start, I suggest writing down:

All of the things you love about your other half - their traits or cute habits.
The reasons you wanted to marry them.
A personal story to share with your guests, it can be funny or romantic, just make sure it is not embarrassing.
All of your wishes for your future together.
How you will both get through any struggles you may face and who can help you through these rough moments.
The promises you want to make, as this is the main purpose of the vows and shows the serious commitment you are making to each other. End your vows with a final promise; "I promise to love you forever" or "I promise to not get annoyed when you rob the duvet off me every night".

Make sure you use your own words and use the type of words that you normally use. It makes it easier to say out loud and it doesn't sound out of place in the ceremony. It is more authentic and is you as a couple. Quotes and lines from movies and songs go well in different parts of the ceremony, but not in the vows!

When you have finished writing all of the things down, do some research on vows that other people have written so you can see the amount of words other people have used. Your vows need to be no more than 2 minutes long, so pick the most important points out of the list you made and keep editing until you get it to this length. Unfortunately you cannot include everything.

Ask a friend or relative can you read them your vows when you have the final version completed. I am sure they will be delighted to get a sneak peak before the big day. They may tell you to change things or add things to make them even better. Read them out loud as much as you can, and figure out when to put in pauses at the right moments - for laughter or tears and for your other half to feel the full impact of your words. If you can learn them off by heart even better, this gives you the chance to make eye contact with each other and make the vows even more intimate and special.

Bring a fresh copy of your vows to the ceremony. While it is the words that are the most important part of the vows, you need to think about how they will look in your hands. Print them on to card or you can buy vow books to hold them. Nobody wants to see crumpled up paper. I get my clients to email me a copy of theirs before the ceremony in case of any emergencies on the day, so ask your Celebrant could they have an spare copy in their folder for you (just in case).

Finally, try and keep your vows a secret from your other half, its exciting for both of you, look at them as a present to each other on the big day :)

Grá go deo,

Donna

Micro Weddings

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 19:21:16 GMT

Micro Weddings during Covid 19

Firstly, let me start by saying to all engaged couples how sorry I am that you have to go through this planning stage with lots of uncertainty and lots of changes. It has been a tough year for everybody, and I remember how excited I was in the planning stages and my heart literally breaks for all the lovely couples I am working with who have had to change their plans over and over again this year!!!

At the moment under Government guidelines there are 25 people (including the couple and Celebrant) allowed to attend weddings, but with numbers coming down it is looking likely that more people could attend weddings in 2021, but in my opinion I would advise couples to look at smaller venues to be on the safe side, and then when things are a bit safer have a sequel wedding to celebrate. This would be how I would approach it if I were planning on getting married during these times, plus it would give me two days to plan and organise (and two dresses)!

There are many benefits to having a smaller wedding, myself and my husband decided to have one last year and it was the best decision we ever made. I wanted to get married with my feet in the sand and as we love Fuerteventura, it was our ideal location, plus he lives in flipflops even in the winter! We are both not one for a fuss either, so smaller numbers suited us. We did the Registry Office in March for the legal bit and only invited our immediate family and best friends. Everyone came back to our house, we put up a gazebo, hung a few decorations, had made a curry that morning, and had the best night. We all drank, ate, and danced our hearts out. In April we flew to Fuerteventura for 2 weeks. We had friends and family fly over, there were 30 people in total and it was the dream. We flew in on the Saturday, got married on the Monday and then had 12 days holidays to spend proper quality time with the people we love the most. A Celebrant based on the island did all of the organising for us. She set up the ceremony on the beach, got us a local makeup artist, set the beach up and done the wedding ceremony. We organised our own hotel and reception, as we knew what we wanted.

In my opinion there are a lot of benefits to having a small wedding:

1. They are truly intimate. You will get to spend much more quality time with your guests. At bigger weddings you do not have the chance to meaningfully interact with your friends and family, as there really is not enough time.

2. There is a lot less fuss with a small wedding. This means that if saying ‘I do’ in front of lots of people terrifies you, then it is a lot easier to do it with less eyes looking at you. It is also a lot easier to organise, which means less stress.

3. Smaller weddings are a lot kinder to your wallet. In the bluntest of ways, less guests equals less cost. You can save lots of money or you can spend the money you would have spent on a large wedding on nice extras to make your day even more special.

4. You get to choose quality over quantity. The money you save on having less guests means that you can spend extra money on raising the quality of the things that matter to you, more expensive meals, a nicer bottle of champagne, a better photographer or more expensive flowers.

5. It allows you to focus on the main reason everyone is there, to celebrate the love you have for each other and that you get to say ‘I do’ surrounded by the people who know and love you the most.

6. Having a Celebrant officiate the ceremony after you have done the legal bit at the Registry Office also opens up more options on where you can have the ceremony, as we do not need a license. Celebrants are flexible with times and I will only ever do one wedding a day, so if the time for the ceremony has to change for any reason then that would be ok.

As an industry, we have all had to adapt to these changes and more venues are now offering attractive packages for micro weddings. I have looked at beautiful venues across Ireland that offer gorgeous settings for smaller weddings and have picked my favourite ones to share with you.