On New Years Eve, we’ll be returning to Chelsea Register Office to register our civil partnership – five years, three court cases and two children after our first attempt.

We can do this thanks to the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act completing its passage through Parliament just before it closed for the General Election. The Act means that all couples in England and Wales can have a civil partnership when the law comes into force in less than two weeks!

Key points are:

• Notice can be given for different sex civil partnerships from 2nd December 2019
• Civil partnerships can take place 28 days after – so from 31st December 2019
• In exceptional cases, such as terminal illness, notice period can be waived. Seek advice from your local register office or contact the General Register Office
• Couples who have formed a civil partnership or equivalent outside the UK will automatically have their relationship recognised from 2nd December
• The government will decide by mid-2020 whether to grant the right to convert a marriage to a civil partnership (or vice versa) and if so for how long
• Northern Ireland will permit mixed-sex civil partnerships from 13th January 2020.
• Scotland is currently consulting on its own legislation with a view to extending CPs

Can you believe the change we’ve all made together?!

Our own civil partnership plans will be simple and straightforward, just like we always wanted.

First, we’ll be giving notice of our intention to become civil partners at our local register office on 2nd December. Then, 29 days later, we’ll head to Chelsea Register office with our children to form our civil partnership in front of two witnesses. We’ve opted for the statutory minimum fee of £46, plus £22 for two certificates!

If all goes to plan, we’ll have the legal status and recognition, rights and protections, and official partnership of equals that we’ve sought all along. It’s been a tough journey at times, so we plan to unwind in the company of close friends and family on New Years Eve to celebrate love and legal reform!

But please don’t let our plans influence what you do. In fact, don’t let anyone tell you what you should do. Just do what is right for you. Civil partnerships are a blank slate, there’s no social script. Take the opportunity to do whatever you want. 

And do share your stories with the campaign on Facebook and Twitter – it makes us so happy to see how much this means to so many of you, and the different ways in which people are forming and celebrating their civil partnerships.

Finally, if you are looking for something special to mark the occasion or a keepsake to remember being part of the campaign, please have a look at Dunn Jewellery with whom the campaign has worked to design a simple but beautiful bar brooch, which we are happy to endorse though neither us nor the ECP campaign have any financial involvement.

Thank you for your support and happy civil partnerships!

Rebecca and Charles