Stuart's interview on BBC Radio Leeds

I've attached the audio from my BBC Radio Leeds interview on Friday the 17th of July 2026. Here is the transcript...

Colson Smith: Good morning, how you getting on... It's twenty to 11 here on Friday, nearly the weekend, welcome to your Friday show. It's Colson Smith keeping you company here on BBC Radio Leeds. Now, we've been chatting this morning about weddings. Do you remember what your wedding was like? Do you remember where you got married? Are you planning a wedding? Are you planning on getting, you know, married? The venues of your dreams, well listen up okay, because laws are about to change. You know historically now, a British couple of any faith, any sex can get married in Las Vegas for example, and the UK will recognise it. However, a couple cannot legally get married in a barn or a garden or a location of importance which is right on their doorstep. But now all this could be changing because yesterday the Ministry of Justice took its steps to challenge this. And to explain more, in the studio with me right now is our Yorkshire celebrant, Stuart Morris. Stuart, good morning.

Stuart Morris: Good morning everybody.

Colson Smith: It is great to have you with us. So first of all Stuart, let's just talk a little bit about the news because you obviously you're more over it than I am, and there's more to this than me turning round saying I'm going to get married on the M62 isn't there?

Stuart Morris: There is a little bit. It's about 10 years of my life in this. So at the moment, you've got to, as you've said, Church of England churches or places with a licence. And that puts the price up for everybody. And it also excludes a lot of places like your back garden or Elland Road, the centre line as you said. So they're taking the law away from it being about a place and they're proposing to license the person. So it'll be celebrants like myself and like those that I train who will be able to do the legal marriage pretty much anywhere, there is a dignity and sort of sanctity of the event clause. You've got to keep it classy. And also the marriage has got to be the main event. So centre line of Elland Road yes, but not on match day. What we're seeing in the wedding industry at the moment is people are spending more per head but having fewer people. So it's becoming more niche, they're focusing on the people that really matter. And this allows us to have ceremonies that really, really focus in on what this couple's about. Because what celebrants do is they spend a year or two years or however long writing the ceremony for the couple, not just some fixed words with somebody they've never met before.

Colson Smith: You said you've been campaigning on this and working on it for 10 years or so. And you made a comment that because we can only get married at the moment in licensed venues... it does obviously have a price effect. Do you think this news can make weddings more cost-effective?

Stuart Morris: For lots of reasons. In the way I talk about it, it democratises marriage. It allows more people to access that commitment... literally, for example, a couple years back my sister got married. And you know me, my mum, dad and my sister's husband Matt, his mum and dad and his brother, we all went to Barnsley Town Hall to do a legal wedding and then we didn't tell anyone, it was all very quiet, and then six weeks later family came from all around the world for my sister's wedding. But you know they'd been married for six weeks. And you still have to, you know, you still have to go to the cost of it, you still have to make the effort doing it. Obviously it's very funny because then you're at the wedding which obviously is a massive deal and it's like well we've already had this. But this, that'll take all that out of it. You then get couples, I was talking to somebody yesterday from the Ministry of Justice and she's got engaged and she's like I'm gonna have to do this two-phase thing. When's my wedding anniversary? Great question! And now once this becomes law it all goes away. This is my challenge to Andy Burnham when he takes over over the weekend is like Andy, you're so pro making things easier for people and this will make marriage simpler, it'll make it cheaper, it'll make it more meaningful for people, just get on with it.

Colson Smith: Is there a why... why has it not been done? Is there a pushback to you on this or...?

Stuart Morris: There is a pushback. Marriage law is really old, bits of it are a thousand years old. And over the years people have botched and tinkered with it. It wasn't until recently that if you were descended from George III you had to have the monarch's permission to marry. And now there's many generations after George III, that's a lot of people! So there's all sorts of problems like that. The Church of England, some of the bishops—and it's only some of the bishops—are saying no, no, no, we represent legal marriage in the country and yeah really guys, we can't all get married in York Minster. It really, uh, and the humanist society have been saying we represent everybody who doesn't have faith. Well no, you represent the people who are actually atheist. Most of the population is somewhere in the messy bit in the middle. And so yeah, the reason is nobody's grasped the nettle and just tidied this mess of legislation that goes back 200 years. This is the biggest change in 200 years.

Colson Smith: So for you as a celebrant, how often are you doing fake weddings?

Stuart Morris: All the time. All the time. Yeah yeah. I mean they're not fake...

Colson Smith: Have any of these been really elaborate and you've gone to the thing of thinking oh this is such a great wedding I really wish this could be legal which obviously hopefully after this news can be?

Stuart Morris: All the time. So one of the things that they are that's in the legislation that's being proposed is weddings on boats.

Colson Smith: Dixie on the breakfast show mentioned airplanes...

Stuart Morris: I did have, we was planning for in the states where the couple had a very large budget... 10 million dollars for the day... take a Boeing 787, strip half the seats out, build a ballroom in the back of the plane and do the whole thing. So that was utterly bonkers. And the tragedy was they split up over COVID. Decided they didn't like living together so I didn't actually get to do it. But that's the silly end of the market. For most people they just want something that's them... We're the world's largest trainer of celebrants, a million people a year go to a ceremony led by somebody I train.

Colson Smith: Why is it such a special job then...

Stuart Morris: You're meeting people at their most vulnerable... One of the things that this changes is it makes life a lot easier for neurodivergent people, disabled people... at the moment you've got to say three sentences of quite complex language. And the new proposal is that that was reduced down to one sentence. The moment you are married is this one sentence... I take you to be my husband, wife, spouse. But the legislation is proposed to have "or similar words or actions". So for people who are nonverbal... if everybody is agreed that this particular action is that...

Colson Smith: What is kind of the next step?

Stuart Morris: If it's in a year I'll be surprised. Within two years... The big question is parliamentary time... And this is the last major thing that Keir Starmer's done and you know I'm grateful to him for that. Andy, just follow it through. We could be doing this within a year...

Colson Smith: Any venue you know what would it be as long as it's respectful and as long as it's the main event...

Stuart Morris: If Becky and I ever do tie the knot, I'm not asking babe it's okay... then it will definitely be something involving a motorbike and an aeroplane cause that's who we are. She's bikes, I'm planes.

Colson Smith: That is Stuart Morris the Yorkshire celebrant there talking about this new laws that are going through...