Can I get married in under a month?

Two happy grooms admiring their wedding rings

You are supposed to give the Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM) to your chosen celebrant no earlier than 18 months and no later than one month before the date of the marriage. If you want to (or need to) get married in less than a month, you can apply for a ‘Shortening of time’. The Shortening of Time is not approved by your celebrant but by a prescribed authority. These are listed on the Attorney General's Department Website.

There are five reasons for which a Shortening of Time might be granted. These are limited to:

• employment related or other travel commitments

• wedding or celebration arrangements, or religious considerations

• medical reasons

• legal proceedings, or

• an error in giving notice.

What to do

Engage your celebrant and complete your NOIM. Your celebrant should explain that the reason for seeking a shortening of time must fall within one of the categories described above before the application can be considered; the prescribed authority has no discretion to grant a shortening of time outside the circumstances covered by the categories above. The granting of a shortening of time is not automatic. The prescribed authority may charge an application fee.

Make an appointment with the prescribed authority.

Take your completed NOIM and your documentary evidence to prove why you need a shortening of time to your appointment along with any monies due. I recently did this on behalf of a couple, and the fee charged by the Registrar of the local courthouse was $47:00 (January 2022).

Documentation might include:

• a letter from a medical practitioner if you are seeking a shortening of time on medical grounds. Be warned: my local registrar was very strict. My couple was applying for a shortening of time on medical grounds, but the registrar did not approve it as she insisted that the medical certificates needed to state that the unwell partner’s life expectancy was less than a month.

• receipts for payments or wedding invitations if the circumstance is wedding or celebration arrangements. The prescribed authority will be looking at the dates payments were made or invitations sent to gauge the genuineness of the need to shorten time.

• If the circumstance relates to relocation for employment the prescribed authority will be looking for evidence of the date on which the applicant was informed of the posting or employment relocation as opposed to the date on which the posting is to commence (unless the posting or employment relocation has been brought forward).

• Error in giving notice relates only to error on the part of the authorised celebrant, not the couple. For example, the celebrant may not have fulfilled their obligation to explain the notice requirements properly. Error in giving notice also includes invalid, stale or lost NOIMs.

• An example of an invalid notice would include a NOIM given to a person who was not an authorised celebrant. A reference to a lost NOIM refers to a notice that has been lost by the authorised celebrant not the couple.

If the prescribed authority approves your shortening of time, they will make a note in the box provided in the NOIM, sign it, add his or her designation and the words ‘Prescribed Authority’ and write the date.

Return the NOIM to the celebrant after a shortening of time is obtained.

Continue planning your special day!

If you’d like to talk about getting married within a month, contact me.