Elope to Edinburgh in a weekend from London. Legally.

Leave King’s Cross on Friday afternoon. Come back Sunday evening married. It works, it’s legal and most people in London have no idea it’s an option. The only thing you need to understand is one piece of paper.

England makes you marry in a licensed venue. Scotland doesn’t. You can marry on a hill here, in a garden, on a beach, in a city square, as long as the paperwork is done and the person marrying you is authorised. Edinburgh is four and a half hours from London on the train. Nobody seems to have put those two facts together, which is odd, because it means a proper wedding fits inside a weekend with no venue, no guest list and no spreadsheet.

There are three ways to do it and they differ in how much admin lands on a weekday.

The 29 days

Whatever route you pick, Scotland wants notice. You each fill in a form called the M10 and send it with your documents to the Edinburgh registrar. It has to be with them at least 29 days before the ceremony and you can send it up to three months ahead. The registrar will usually accept scans of your passports and certificates by email and look at the originals when you’re in Edinburgh, though check with the office first rather than take our word for it. Either way, it’s all done from home.

After that it comes down to the Marriage Schedule. That’s the licence your celebrant needs in their hand on the day, and who holds it decides what kind of weekend you’re having.

With us: Put your Saturday into our legal timeline generator and it tells you the day the forms need to go in the post. Our legal guide is written for Americans but applies just as well to Londoners; you just have fewer documents to dig out.

Marry at City Chambers on Saturday, then walk out the door to us

This is the one nobody from London seems to know about. Edinburgh’s registrars conduct civil ceremonies in City Chambers on the Royal Mile and they do it at weekends. Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons. You book through the council’s online system.

Because a registrar is marrying you, the registrar holds the schedule. There’s nothing for you to collect and nothing to return afterwards, so there’s no weekday errand. You turn up, say the words and sign, and then you’re married and standing on the High Street.

We’ll be honest about the room. It’s a council ceremony suite. It’s fine. It is not why you came to Edinburgh. The reason is outside: the Royal Mile, the closes running off it, Calton Hill ten minutes away with the whole city laid out. The civil ceremony takes care of the law in about twenty minutes and then the next two hours are the part you’ll remember.

A civil ceremony can’t include anything religious, or anything that reads as religious, so no handfasting inside and no readings with a hint of faith. If you want cord and ribbon and vows you wrote yourselves, we do that on the hill afterwards. It isn’t the legal part, so there are no rules about it.

With us: We meet you before the ceremony, photograph the walk in and from the moment you come out the day is ours. Two of us, so you get the two of you small against the city and the close shots from the same minute. Have a look at the Edinburgh elopement page and check your date to see if we’re free.

A celebrant, anywhere you like, with one Friday errand

This is the version most people picture when they think of a Scottish elopement. A celebrant marries you outdoors. Arthur’s Seat, a garden, the beach at Portobello. Your own vows, a handfasting if you want one, no council carpet.

The schedule is the catch. For a celebrant wedding one of you has to collect it in person from the registrar inside the seven days before the ceremony, and return it within three days after. The registration counter is a council office and as far as we can establish it keeps weekday hours.

So the weekend grows by a night. Up on Thursday evening, collect on Friday, marry on Saturday, home on Sunday. Your celebrant drops the schedule back on the Monday. Still no venue and no guest list. Just one extra night in a city that can take it.

With us: We know celebrants we trust and we’ll make the introduction. We’re your two witnesses, which is included, and we know which corners of the city are empty at ten on a Saturday morning. The spots are on our locations page.

Legal at home, the real one here

Register office in London on a Tuesday, ten minutes, two witnesses, done. Then come north for the wedding that feels like a wedding. Vows you wrote, a handfasting, a dram, a day of photographs, and not a single form, because legally it’s a vow ceremony rather than a marriage.

Nobody who sees the photographs will know the difference, and in our experience neither will you after about a year.

With us: We conduct these ourselves. We write the ceremony with you rather than for you.

What the weekend looks like

Friday, the five o’clock out of King’s Cross has you in Waverley before half nine. Drop the bags, walk the Mile in the dark, eat somewhere small. Or get the Caledonian Sleeper from Euston and wake up already there.

Saturday, a quarter to eleven ceremony at City Chambers, or a celebrant on the hill if you did the Friday errand. Photographs through the Old Town and up Calton Hill until about half one. A long lunch. The afternoon is yours and the evening is a table somewhere good or a pub with a fire, your call.

Sunday, Arthur’s Seat if you’re that sort of couple, the Botanics if you’re not. Brunch in Stockbridge. The three o’clock back to London gets you home by eight, married since yesterday.

With us: Around four hours is our Edinburgh sweet spot, which covers the ceremony, the city and a stop for a drink. We don’t watch the clock. We do watch the light.

When to come

Edinburgh works all year. From November to March the city empties out, the light stays low all day and it costs less to book us. August is the Fringe, which is either the best honeymoon you’ll ever have or a month to avoid, depending how you feel about crowds and stand-up. Our guide to the months goes into it.

One practical note. Weekend slots at City Chambers are limited and they go first. Book the registrar before you book the train.

Before you book anything

Decide which of the three you’re doing, because it changes how many nights you need. Then check your date with us, since weekends go early at our end too. The pricing tool will give you a number without anyone phoning you. Count back 29 days from the Saturday and add a week for the post, or let the timeline generator do it. And consider telling nobody until Sunday night, which isn’t compulsory but is the best bit.

— Jodie & Matt

Got a weekend in mind? Check your date, then get in touch and tell us which route you’re leaning towards. We’ll tell you what works and what we’d do in your shoes. Or go straight to pricing.