NEW REGISTER OFFICE

Opunake Times, 16 January 1934, Page 3

NEW REGISTER OFFICE

100 YEARS OF ROMANCE Being married in a register office has become what the Mayor of Westminster calls "'very flash'' says a London paper. Prince' Row and Henrietta Street—those famous (and gloomy) offices where gaiety girls used to marry into the peerage, and divorcees, millionaires, important people, and nobodies signed contracts and gave rings for nearly 150 years, existed no more after the last day in Sept em* her. They were being merged into one large, immaculately painted central register office in Caxton Hall, Westminster, where one may choose any of six differentsized rooms to be married in, according to the pretensions of the wedding, where there is room for all of even a debutante's wedding guests, and service, catering, and every suitable splendour may be had on the spot for a fee. The time has gone by when being married in a register office meant a nightmarish half-hour in a room that harboured more cobwebs than sentiments. There was always a smell of ink, and usually a charwoman wlio sniffed and was accustomed to act as witness to any number of marriages for a consideration.

It was never easy to feel as it' a solemn knot were being tied, with Covetit Garden, shouting hoarsely outside the window and the smell of cabbages overpowering the bride's modest little bunch of flowers. There was never room for any wedding guests. It was a dismal business.

The Caston Hall register office though, makes up in splendid comfort for all the deficiencies of the past. Every room is as clean and bright as a hospital ward, and the marriage rooms vary in size and impressiveness from a small office to an oak panelled hall, with a new carpet on the floor and floodlighting in the ceilino.