Next Steps..

1. Workshop

Before you can apply for authorisation you must attend the autumn workshop led by Rev Davina McCluskie and Chris Booth, held in person, usually in October or November, at a location that moves around Scotland from year to year. This is the second part of your training, and it is also the first of the two CPD workshops OneSpirit runs each year, so you will be in the room with experienced ministers as well as other new ones. Dates and venue are circulated by OneSpirit.

This online module is free to ministers applying to join the registers; each workshop costs £98. Please make sure you are registered for the workshop if you hope to apply for authorisation this year.

2. Applying for your first authorisation

Once you have been asked to hold a legal ceremony, as early as you can and no later than three months before it, email admin@interfaithfoundation.org with:

1. your name as used for ordination, which will appear on your authorisation and on the Schedule you sign
2. your year of ordination
3. confirmation of your home address and email address (letters of support are emailed)
4. the date and time of the ceremony
5. the full address of the venue, including postcode
6. the full names of the couple, exactly as they will write them on their M10 or CP10 forms
7. which category the ceremony falls into: mixed-sex marriage, same-sex marriage, mixed-sex civil partnership, or same-sex civil partnership.

You will be sent OneSpirit’s nomination request form to complete (https://scotlandtemporaryregister.paperform.co). The nominators, Rev Lindsay Reynolds and Rev Davina McCluskie, will then prepare and email you two letters of support on OneSpirit headed paper.

Your final step is to write your own letter of application to NRS Combined Registration Services at crs@nrscotland.gov.uk, attaching the two letters of support. A draft is in the Resources section, covering the information NRS needs. NRS accepts applications from three months before the ceremony, not earlier, and authorisation is generally issued within ten working days, often sooner. It helps to send your application at around the same time as the couple send theirs.

3. Subsequent ceremonies

Authorisation for a second and subsequent ceremony in the same category is simpler. NRS holds your details, so you need only email crs@nrscotland.gov.uk with the new ceremony details, noting that you have been authorised previously as a OneSpirit minister in that category. Your letter might begin:

“I am applying for temporary authorisation to solemnise a marriage to take place in [month] in Scotland. I have received authorisation from you as a OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation minister for a previous marriage of this kind.”

The rest of the letter follows your first application. A draft is in the Resources section. No enclosures are needed. Remember that your first ceremony in any new category needs fresh letters of support from OneSpirit.

4. Continuing Professional Development, support and supervision

Holding legal ceremonies is a privilege and a great responsibility. To keep up to date with changes in law and practice, ministers on the registers must attend an in-person CPD workshop on legal weddings in Scotland at least once every two years. You are welcome to attend every year; it is a good opportunity to share knowledge and experience and to learn about best practice. There are normally two workshops a year, held in person in different parts of Scotland. The workshop in the autumn covers the basic topics, while the one in the spring is a chance to explore more advanced questions. Either workshop meets the two-year requirement, and the locations rotate so that over any two years one of the four workshops is within reasonable reach of wherever you are. Each workshop costs £98.

Why in person, and why required

• The workshops are held in person because the work is. A legal wedding is held in a room, with a couple, two witnesses and a Schedule, and the judgement it calls for is learned in the company of people who do it: the question you did not know you had until someone else asked it, the registrar’s local practice a colleague can tell you about, the near miss that becomes everyone’s lesson.

• They are required because the law and NRS’s expectations keep moving (same-sex marriage in 2014, mixed-sex civil partnership in 2021, revised NRS policies in 2025, and the Scottish Government’s 2026 consultation still to land), because one minister’s mistake reflects on every minister on the registers and on OneSpirit’s standing as the body that nominated them, and because attendance is one of the ways OneSpirit meets the legal definition of a belief body: an organised group that meets regularly to uphold and promote its beliefs.

• OneSpirit has told NRS, in its 2026 audit, and the Scottish Government, in its consultation response, that these workshops are among the ways it meets. Your attendance is part of the foundation on which every OneSpirit minister’s authorisation rests. That is also why experienced ministers are asked to come, and not excused from coming: they carry what newer ministers need, and the workshops depend on them.

• Authorisation is not a licence a minister owns. It is a trust extended by the Registrar General through OneSpirit, renewed by continuing to be the kind of minister it was extended to. Sometimes ministers who completed their OneSpirit ministry training in one of the online classes ask why these workshops could not also be held online. We recognise that attending an in-person workshop places a demand on ministers, financial and in time and effort, and we believe that on balance the benefits make the requirement worthwhile, for ministers and for those who seek their services.

If your CPD lapses. A minister who has not attended a workshop within two years will be written to and asked to attend the next one. A minister who then does not attend is removed from the registers, and NRS is told. If travel is exceptionally hard for you, because of disability, health, or where you live, talk to Chris or the nominators well before the two years are up, and we will look at what can be done; a case made in advance is a very different thing from an absence explained afterwards.

For details of forthcoming CPD workshops, contact Chris Booth, CPD Coordinator, at chris@gn.apc.org.

Answers to the questions in Gateway Two:

These are the questions you were asked to reflect on. We come back to them at the workshop; bring your own.

“I was planning to get married in the registration office but I’d like to have a hymn. Is this possible?”

Not at a civil ceremony: a registrar’s ceremony may not include religious content. A religious or belief ceremony, including one conducted by a OneSpirit minister, can include whatever the couple wish, and can be held wherever the couple and you agree and the venue allows (which rules out the registration office itself, and some churches will not host another body’s ceremony).

“My future husband and I are travelling to Scotland to get married. It is just the two of us. Will we need a witness and how can we arrange this?”

Two witnesses, each aged 16 or over, must be present and sign the Schedule, and you cannot be one of them. Couples travelling alone usually bring friends, or ask the venue, the photographer or a local contact. Help them arrange it well in advance; it is not something to solve on the day.

“We arrive in Glasgow on the morning of our wedding. It is a bank holiday and the registration office is not open. Can someone else collect the marriage schedule for us?”

No. Only one of the couple, in person, can collect the Schedule, and only in the seven days before the ceremony. They must collect it on a working day within that window, or the ceremony cannot be legal. Check the office’s opening arrangements with the couple months ahead, and again the week before.

“My friend is a great public speaker and would like to conduct our ceremony, but he is not an authorised minister. Can you help?”

Only an authorised celebrant can solemnise a marriage, and that is you: you lead the ceremony. The friend can lead readings and take part, but the legal declarations and the signing are conducted by you as the authorised celebrant. Temporary authorisation is available only to a member of a religious or belief body nominated by that body; NRS does not authorise independent celebrants.

“I’d like to get married in my aunt’s hotel. It does not have a licence for weddings, can you marry me there?” “Could the registrar marry me there?”

Yes to the first: a religious or belief ceremony needs no venue licence and can be held at any venue that agrees to host it. For the second, a registrar conducts civil ceremonies at a registration office or at another place agreed with the registrar, so the couple would need to ask the registration office whether the hotel is possible.

“I’d like to get married on my boat. Can you do this?”

Yes, provided the boat is in Scotland and the place can be identified on the couple’s forms and the Schedule, since it must fall within a registration district; a grid reference is sufficient, and the spot does not need a name. A moored boat is simple. A boat under way needs the registrar’s agreement in advance about where the marriage is treated as taking place, so agree the wording with the registration office before the couple give notice, and consult the registrar if in any doubt.

“My fiancé has a life-limiting illness and only has a few days to live. Is it possible to get married before she dies?”

Yes, and quickly. Where there is good cause, the Registrar General can authorise the registrar to issue the Schedule before the usual notice period has run, and NRS will deal with your temporary authorisation urgently. The couple, or someone acting for them, should contact the registration office at once; you contact OneSpirit and NRS the same day. Both parties must be able to understand and consent to the marriage, and medical evidence may be asked for.

“What vows do we have to say to each other in our civil partnership?”

None. The law prescribes no words for a civil partnership; it is formed when both parties sign the Civil Partnership Schedule in the presence of two witnesses aged 16 or over and of you. Anything else the couple say is their choice, and yours to shape with them.

“I’d like my 15-year-old daughter to be a witness. Is that all right?”

No. Witnesses must be aged 16 or over. A relative can be a witness; age is the only bar.