Hello, my first post and I wondering if anyone can shed any light on our situation. Here we go ...

I live in Zug with my fiance. He lives here officially and I am yet to do the paperwork having only just moved so I officially live in the UK still.

We are planning our wedding for April next year in England and the local registrar has told us that my fiance will have to register his intent to marry at the British Consulate in Bern. Having contacted them, they appear to have no knowledge of this and have referred us back. He has no official address in the UK and we're a little bit puzzled about what to do???!

Has anyone been in this situation? Please help.

Thank you.

Surely if you have left Britain, you cannot get married there, unless you both live there once again for 3 weeks (Edited not 6 weeks).

I think you had better direct your query to the Registrar in the UK, as someone has made an error.

Have you considered getting married here in a church? This church is Anglican, http://www.stursula.ch/

You have to be resident in the UK for 7 days before you can give notice to marry there, then you can marry 15 days after notice is given. You should check with the Citizens Advice Bureau or the registrar (as ittigen said) in the area you want to get married for exactly what paperwork they will require from you to show this. You might be able to come back to Switzerland in between.
I'm assuming your fiancé is also British, if not there may be other requirements.

It's all pretty clear and explicit, according to the horse's mouth

In particular, no consular involvement needed or expected.

HTH

It's a while ago now (10 years), but from a quick re-read-up it looks like things haven't changed that much... you just need to "live" in the UK for a week and then register your intent at the registry office - you'll need an address to give (we used our parents) and then you can get married a few weeks later. No need to do anything with the consulate here. When we came back we just had to tell the gemeinde that we were married for the tax stuff. And change our passports, but we did that later.

Thank you so much for your help and advice. I thought the seven day rule was definitely the way we had to go but then I doubted myself after receiving the wrong advice from the official registrar - great!

Back we go ..

Thank you again!

Myrtille,

If I were you I would just give the registrar at the office where you want to marry a ring. In my case the registrar was really laid back and said that if I still had a UK address that the 7 days in her eyes didnt matter. Legally it does state 7 days but most of them will overlook it as long as you have an UK address to quote.