What Your Church Needs to Legally Perform a Wedding

This article was last verified in July 2026. Registration processes and supplier arrangements can change. Always check the current position directly with the Attorney-General's Department before you act on what you read here.

This article covers how a minister becomes an authorised marriage celebrant in Australia, and how to order the paperwork a wedding legally requires. It does not cover wedding-day logistics or preparing a couple pastorally for their day. The question tends to come up at a specific moment: a new minister has arrived, a long-serving one is about to perform their first wedding at your church, or a couple has already set a date and someone in the office has realised nobody actually checked.

Most Australian churches assume their minister needs to personally apply to the federal government before performing a legal wedding. That is not quite how it works, and taking it literally can send an administrator looking for a form that, for most churches, does not exist.

Under the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth), the first requirement sits with the religious organisation, not the individual minister. A church's denomination must be a recognised denomination under section 26 of the Act. Most long-established Australian denominations already are, through the Marriage (Recognised Denominations) Proclamation 2018.

Once a denomination is recognised, it is the denomination's own nominating authority, usually a head office or a central administrative role, that nominates individual ministers to the relevant state or territory registrar of births, deaths and marriages. Those ministers must meet the criteria set out in section 29 of the Act to be registered as authorised celebrants. For a minister of an already-recognised denomination, there is no separate personal application to the Attorney-General's Department. The first call is to your own denomination's office, not to the federal government.

This is worth getting right before a date is locked in. A wedding performed by someone who is not an authorised celebrant under the Act is not a legally valid marriage.

Newer, independent, and non-denominational congregations are not automatically covered by any of this. Not every Australian religious organisation is a recognised denomination, and the nomination pathway above only applies if yours is.

Check your denomination's status against the recognised religious denominations list before assuming the nomination process applies to your church. If your denomination is not on that list, your minister can apply directly to become a Commonwealth-registered marriage celebrant through the Marriage Celebrants Program, with the option to be identified as a religious marriage celebrant. This is a real undertaking in its own right: it requires a Certificate IV in Celebrancy or an equivalent qualification, a one-off $400 application fee, and the Attorney-General's Department can take up to six months to assess an application. Start this well before any wedding date is set, not once one has already been booked.

Once your minister is a registered celebrant, two more practical items need sorting before a wedding day: the Form 15 Certificate of Marriage, and a marriage register if your church keeps one.

Both are purchased, not downloaded. CanPrint Communications is the Commonwealth's authorised supplier, and the only place a church can order marriage stationery. Orders can only be filled for a registered celebrant, and the celebrant's registration number will be asked for every time. Order marriage stationery directly from CanPrint's ordering site.

Separately, if your church wants a nicer-looking keepsake certificate to present to the couple alongside the legally required Form 15, the Attorney-General's Department publishes a free, editable certificate of marriage template for religious ceremonies that can be printed in your own office. This is a presentation certificate only, not a substitute for the Form 15 your celebrant is legally required to complete and lodge.