First wedding in new ceremony room at Merchants House in Chester

Cheshire West and Chester Council has just opened a new ceremony room in Chester.

The new ceremony room (called the Merchants Suite) is a completely new space in a different building, Merchants House, Crook Street, Chester. In the coming months the Register Office will move entirely into Merchants House.

The Merchants Suite is a well-appointed and bright triple-aspect room with plenty of natural light and with its own dedicated entrance.  The first marriage in the new ceremony room was celebrated on 1 May, when Shaun Bewley and Lucille Romoc tied the knot.

The happy couple previously had a long-distance relationship between Hong Kong and Chester and now live in west Cheshire. Shaun planned a surprise proposal at Disney Land, somewhere Lucille had always wanted to visit.

The couple said they feel very lucky to be the first couple married in the Merchants Suite. “It’s like making history, being the first of many couples to get married in a place.” 

The Council’s Cabinet Member for Homes, Planning and Safer Communities, Councillor Christine Warner said:

“Many congratulations to Shaun and Lucille on their big day, we wish them a long and happy marriage.

“The new ceremony room is fresh, bright and modern, I’m sure many more couples will enjoy holding their ceremony in such lovely surroundings in the future.  As well as marriage ceremonies, the room will host civil partnerships, renewal of vows and naming ceremonies.”

The previous room in Goldsmith House was established in the 1970s and has seen many changes regarding the legislation for marriages over the years.

Back in the 1970s marriages were only able to take place in either churches or civil Register Offices, so many of weddings took place in local authority ceremony rooms.

In 1994 new legislation was passed to allow marriages to take place in approved premises such as hotels or other approved buildings. This resulted in a decrease in the number of ceremonies that took place in civil Register Offices, as couples now had the freedom to marry at more venues. At the moment, the Council’s Registration Service delivers around 450 ceremonies a year in their Chester ceremony room.

The next significant changes took effect a decade later, when same-sex civil partnerships were introduced in 2005, followed by same-sex marriages in 2014, and then opposite-sex civil partnerships in December 2019.

Pictured - The separate entrance to the Merchants Suite.