Weddings and Marriage Registration
At Strength to Live we are able to officiate at your wedding. We love doing weddings and celebrating love. Whether you are a member of a church or not, we are always eager to assist.
However, due to recent misunderstandings we find it necessary to publish this page to clear up certain things. All of this information is discussed with every couple who comes to us to officiate at a wedding ceremony, but some of the details tend to get “lost in translation”, so here are the details regarding legal and spiritual weddings.
1. Spiritual Wedding Ceremonies
At Strength to Live we are ordained BY CHURCHES AND CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS to preach, teach, and perform weddings. This means that we can lead a wedding service, preach a sermon, take the vows, and bless the union. This has nothing to do with the LEGAL aspect of marriage as prescribed by the South African government (to be discussed next).
In our view a Spiritual marriage is just as valid as a legal marriage for all spiritual purposes. For many centuries, in Biblical times, a marriage was official once a man and a woman publically proclaimed that they commit themselves to becoming husband and wife. The government never came into the agreement in any way. Government’s involvement in marriages can only be dated back a few centuries, and though there are benefits to having a marriage confirmed legally, this was not always the way it was done.
More often than not, a wedding ceremony involves both the spiritual AND legal aspects in one service.
Though we at Strength to Live believe in the concept of “freely we receive, so freely we give”, we also know that there are expenses involved and officiating at a wedding ceremony is time-intensive. People often only see the hour that the service lasts and think about the Pastor’s role as only being for that hour. However, preparing a sermon, arranging all the pre-service information, making sure that you know and understand the couple’s desires and requirements, finding ways to work that into the sermon, and then delivering the sermon to the best of your ability is much more time consuming than people think.
So we find it only fair to charge a fair fee for all the expenses and preparation time involved. This charge is not for wealth purposes, it is simply there to cover the costs and ensure that the Pastor can focus on the wedding ceremony without being concerned about expenses.
2. The legal side of a wedding
The South African government requires that a Pastor becomes a marriage officiant by studying marriage law and writing a test before they can confirm a LEGALLY BINDING marriage. This legal aspect is required if there is to be a marriage contract or if one of the partners wants to take the other’s surname. It involves the signing of a form provided by Home Affairs (called a BI-30 form), in triplicate (using duplicating paper). The three copies are then used as follows:
- The first copy (original) is submitted to Home Affairs, along with other legally required documents, within 3 working days of the wedding ceremony. (More on this in a moment.)
- The second copy is given to the bride and groom directly after the ceremony. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT THEY KEEP THIS DOCUMENT.
- The third copy (which by this time is usually very faded and unclear) is kept in the marriage officiant’s book, which will be handed in to Home Affairs once the book is full.
After the original copy of the completed BI-30, along with all supporting documentation, is handed in at Home Affairs, the marriage should be registered instantly (in a perfect world – which this is not). From experience we can confirm that it could take MONTHS for this to happen.
If after a few months the marriage still isn’t registered, the bride and groom can take their copy of the BI-30 to Home Affairs (as we stated, it’s important for them to keep their copy). Home Affairs will then let them complete another form and register the marriage immediately. The cost for this is approximately R20 at the time of writing.
We are unsure why this is necessary but since around 2018 we’ve seen more and more such cases, where the documents were submitted by the marriage officiant but never registered by Home Affairs.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NOTES
Having explained all that, please take note of the following:
- A pastor who is registered with Home Affairs as a Marriage Officiant does NOT work for Home Affairs. We are not “agents” of Home Affairs. We do not have “contacts” or “strings that we can pull”. We cannot “go into Home Affairs and fix your unregistered marriage”. We are simply pastors who wrote an additional test, get heaps of extra paperwork, spend HOURS in queues to hand in your documents, and then hope and pray that the person at Home Affairs does their job.
- We do not charge for registering your marriage. As stated above, we DON’T register your marriage, we just hand in the paperwork. Home Affairs registers your marriage. As such we are NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED to charge for the registration of a marriage. Any charges are for the expenses involved and for the actual religious service.
- We cannot replace the BI-30 if you lost your copy. The original is handed in to Home Affairs and the third copy, as stated, is usually so unclear that it is useless when scanned or photocopied.
- With all of the above in mind, Strength to Live will no longer offer the legal side of any wedding service. We are always pleased to handle the spiritual side of your wedding ceremony, but since Home Affairs has obviously become more and more unreliable with the registration, causing us unneeded stress and frustration afterwards, we encourage soon-to-be-weds to rather go to their local Home Affairs and have all the legal aspects covered directly with them.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please feel free to contact us.
Weddings
At Strength to Live we are able to officiate at your wedding. We love doing weddings and celebrating love. Whether you are a member of a church or not, we are always eager to assist.
However, due to recent misunderstandings we find it necessary to publish this page to clear up certain things. All of this information is discussed with every couple who comes to us to officiate at a wedding ceremony, but some of the details tend to get “lost in translation”, so here are the details regarding legal and spiritual weddings.
1. Spiritual Wedding Ceremonies
At Strength to Live we are ordained BY CHURCHES AND CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS to preach, teach, and perform weddings. This means that we can lead a wedding service, preach a sermon, take the vows, and bless the union. This has nothing to do with the LEGAL aspect of marriage as prescribed by the South African government (to be discussed next).
In our view a Spiritual marriage is just as valid as a legal marriage for all spiritual purposes. For many centuries, in Biblical times, a marriage was official once a man and a woman publically proclaimed that they commit themselves to becoming husband and wife. The government never came into the agreement in any way. Government’s involvement in marriages can only be dated back a few centuries, and though there are benefits to having a marriage confirmed legally, this was not always the way it was done.
More often than not, a wedding ceremony involves both the spiritual AND legal aspects in one service.
Though we at Strength to Live believe in the concept of “freely we receive, so freely we give”, we also know that there are expenses involved and officiating at a wedding ceremony is time-intensive. People often only see the hour that the service lasts and think about the Pastor’s role as only being for that hour. However, preparing a sermon, arranging all the pre-service information, making sure that you know and understand the couple’s desires and requirements, finding ways to work that into the sermon, and then delivering the sermon to the best of your ability is much more time consuming than people think.
So we find it only fair to charge a fair fee for all the expenses and preparation time involved. This charge is not for wealth purposes, it is simply there to cover the costs and ensure that the Pastor can focus on the wedding ceremony without being concerned about expenses.
2. The legal side of a wedding
The South African government requires that a Pastor becomes a marriage officiant by studying marriage law and writing a test before they can confirm a LEGALLY BINDING marriage. This legal aspect is required if there is to be a marriage contract or if one of the partners wants to take the other’s surname. It involves the signing of a form provided by Home Affairs (called a BI-30 form), in triplicate (using duplicating paper). The three copies are then used as follows:
- The first copy (original) is submitted to Home Affairs, along with other legally required documents, within 3 working days of the wedding ceremony. (More on this in a moment.)
- The second copy is given to the bride and groom directly after the ceremony. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT THEY KEEP THIS DOCUMENT.
- The third copy (which by this time is usually very faded and unclear) is kept in the marriage officiant’s book, which will be handed in to Home Affairs once the book is full.
After the original copy of the completed BI-30, along with all supporting documentation, is handed in at Home Affairs, the marriage should be registered instantly (in a perfect world – which this is not). From experience we can confirm that it could take MONTHS for this to happen.
If after a few months the marriage still isn’t registered, the bride and groom can take their copy of the BI-30 to Home Affairs (as we stated, it’s important for them to keep their copy). Home Affairs will then let them complete another form and register the marriage immediately. The cost for this is approximately R20 at the time of writing.
We are unsure why this is necessary but since around 2018 we’ve seen more and more such cases, where the documents were submitted by the marriage officiant but never registered by Home Affairs.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NOTES
Having explained all that, please take note of the following:
- A pastor who is registered with Home Affairs as a Marriage Officiant does NOT work for Home Affairs. We are not “agents” of Home Affairs. We do not have “contacts” or “strings that we can pull”. We cannot “go into Home Affairs and fix your unregistered marriage”. We are simply pastors who wrote an additional test, get heaps of extra paperwork, spend HOURS in queues to hand in your documents, and then hope and pray that the person at Home Affairs does their job.
- We do not charge for registering your marriage. As stated above, we DON’T register your marriage, we just hand in the paperwork. Home Affairs registers your marriage. As such we are NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED to charge for the registration of a marriage. Any charges are for the expenses involved and for the actual religious service.
- We cannot replace the BI-30 if you lost your copy. The original is handed in to Home Affairs and the third copy, as stated, is usually so unclear that it is useless when scanned or photocopied.
- With all of the above in mind, Strength to Live will no longer offer the legal side of any wedding service. We are always pleased to handle the spiritual side of your wedding ceremony, but since Home Affairs has obviously become more and more unreliable with the registration, causing us unneeded stress and frustration afterwards, we encourage soon-to-be-weds to rather go to their local Home Affairs and have all the legal aspects covered directly with them.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please feel free to contact us.