Back in 2021, ‘designated’ status for register offices was extended to cover all services in England and Wales, a big expansion on select 70+ register offices that would previously manage appointments requiring Home Office approval.
Since that date, we’ve been hard at work developing and deploying updated notice flows that account for European Settlement Scheme Status (EUSS), designated appointment fees, and so much more.
As part of this updated approach to notices, we are pleased to also announce an optional flow for celebrants looking to have their marriage abroad, enabling couples to proceed with their appointment online where previously the solution would encourage telephone bookings.
The move will look to further support the transition of civil registration to online self service forms, and reduce the administrative burden on services currently handling these bookings manually, booking volumes of which are stated to be in the tens of thousands each year.
How will it work?
Created as its own distinct link, those stating their marriage will be outside of England and Wales will be invited to continue their booking on a new link, beginning the Certificate of No Impediment flow.
Celebrants will then be able to run through a modified notice booking process, with the addition of a country of marriage dropdown to verify if a Certificate of No Impediment can be issued, and a new check based on the nationality of the celebrant to determine if they can advance further.
Upon completing and issuing payment, the registration service will be able to access new diary fields to quickly display customer choices ahead of the appointment.
How can I add this to my notice flow?
To add the Certificate of No Impediment appointment flow to your system, we will require that you already have a DRO notices project in progress, installed to TEST, or installed to LIVE with us. This is as the architecture for our previous notice process will not be consistent with the new flow.
If you’d like to raise a project for the DRO notices process with the Certificate of No Impediment option or just want to add this new process to your existing notices, please contact your Stopford Project Manager or get in touch via our contact form.