Planning a nikah and a civil ceremony together

Every month, thousands of British Muslim couples plan two ceremonies. The nikah is the marriage. The civil ceremony is what makes it a marriage in the eyes of English law, because in England and Wales a nikah on its own, held outside a registered building, has no legal standing. Most couples know this. The planning questions start after it.

One day or two

There is no rule. Some couples hold the civil ceremony quietly with two witnesses a week before the nikah and treat the nikah as the wedding, which it is. Some do both on the same day, civil ceremony at noon, nikah in the afternoon, one dinner. Venues experienced with Muslim weddings will have seen both and can tell you honestly which their spaces suit.

The same-day version needs a venue licensed for civil ceremonies, an imam happy to travel, and a schedule with more slack in it than you think. The two-day version needs nothing except a registrar's diary and costs a fraction as much, which is why it is quietly the most common choice.

What to ask a venue

Whether they have hosted a nikah, plainly, and what they did well. Whether there is a space for prayer. Whether the celebration can be fully dry, and whether the answer comes with a pause, because a venue that earns its money on a bar minimum has an incentive problem with your wedding that is better discovered now.

The two-day version costs a fraction as much, which is why it is quietly the most common choice.

The law is about to move

A Ministry of Justice consultation on allowing legal weddings outside licensed premises closes in September. If the law changes, an outdoor nikah in a garden could itself become the legal marriage, and this article will be rewritten with some pleasure. Until then, the registrar is part of the plan, and the couples who book them earliest have the calmest month before.