Your first legal marriage or civil partnership

OneSpirit is authorised to nominate ministers to hold legal marriages and civil partnerships in Scotland. Authorisation is not automatic. Once you have completed both parts of OneSpirit’s solemnisers’ training, you apply to the Registrar General for Scotland, through NRS, for authorisation as an individual, and your application must be supported by OneSpirit. Ministers cannot self-nominate.

There are two forms of authorisation open to OneSpirit ministers:

• temporary authorisation (section 12 of the 1977 Act for marriage; section 94E of the 2004 Act for civil partnership)
• registered celebrant status, often called the ‘permanent’ register (section 9 for marriage; section 94B for civil partnership), which lasts for three years and is renewable.

You cannot apply for authorisation until you have been asked to hold your first legal wedding or civil partnership. You cannot apply earlier than three months before the date of the ceremony, and you must allow sufficient time for NRS to process your application.

Once I have completed the training, how do I get OneSpirit’s support for my first legal ceremony in Scotland?

Contact OneSpirit at admin@interfaithfoundation.org. Your request will be routed to the nominators, Rev Lindsay Reynolds and Rev Davina McCluskie, who hold delegated responsibility for supporting nominations on OneSpirit’s behalf. You will be asked to complete OneSpirit’s nomination request form (https://scotlandtemporaryregister.paperform.co), which gathers the evidence OneSpirit needs to support you: ROSIM membership, insurance, residency, training, the required reading, and a declaration of anything OneSpirit should know that might bear on your suitability.

Contact us as early as you can, and no later than three months before the ceremony, with the date and time of the wedding or civil partnership, the full names of the couple, and the full address of the venue. Three months before the ceremony is the earliest point at which NRS will accept an application, so the sooner you are in touch, the more time the nominators have to prepare your two letters of support, which are emailed to you. Late requests are difficult to support.

You then send your own letter requesting authorisation, with the two letters of support, to NRS Combined Registration Services by email at crs@nrscotland.gov.uk. Sample letters are in the Resources section. Your letter should state the designation you will use when signing the Schedule, which is Minister, OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation, and for a first application it will include a declaration that you have no intention of carrying on a business of solemnising marriages for profit or gain, disclosure of any criminal convictions within the last four years, and evidence that you have completed OneSpirit’s training.

NRS will process your application and write to you granting authorisation for the particular marriage or civil partnership you requested. They will copy their letter to the relevant registration office so it can be matched with the couple’s M10 or CP10 forms.

You will now hold temporary authorisation. Please pay careful attention to the note below.

Attention please. Authorisation is given only for the particular category of ceremony, so at this stage you will hold temporary authorisation for one of the four categories: mixed-sex marriage, same-sex marriage, mixed-sex civil partnership, or same-sex civil partnership, depending on the ceremony you were authorised for. If you are later asked to hold a ceremony in a different category, you will need to make a new application for that category, and again be nominated by OneSpirit with two letters of support.