Can you sign NOIM form on the wedding day?

Hi - this is a serious issue and best not answered in this forum. Your friend needs to get advice, perhaps by contacting the celebrant who conducted that wedding, the Attorney General's Department or a lawyer.

A Notice of Intended Marriage must be lodged at least one month before the wedding takes place. It's legal to lodge it with only one party's signature but the celebrant must meet independently with BOTH parties before the ceremony begins to ensure there is no coersion.

If one party is not fully aware of what is happening and does not appear to be completely comfortable - that is, is not giving free and informed consent to the marriage - a celebrant must not conduct the legal parts of the ceremony. If circumstances require, a commitment ceremony can take place and the celebrant can manage the legal aspects later if and when it is clear that both parties fully consent.

There are a variety of reasons why a second party can only sign on the day but this is not ideal as it risks the situation you describe.

You are correct that the practise of signing NOIM and solemnising the marriage on the same day is totally illegal.
When you say the marriage has not been registered yet, how do you know .
I would be contacting the department of Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) in your state and enquiring about a course of action

The NOIM must be lodged with the celebrant outside of 30 days and within 18 months. The only way around this is with a shortening of the notice period which is based on specific criteria and approved by an authorised body usually a court register. It is very suspicious and if the celebrant acted inappropriately could be seriously fined. 

In short, ‘NO’, it is not legal.

There are a number of concerns here in the description of events you have given.

1. The NOIM must be lodged 1-18 months before the marriage is solemnised unless a Shortening of Time in Notice (SOT) has been granted but a SOT requires the involvement of both parties to the marriage and is only granted by a Prescribed Authority in special circumstances. Clearly, from the description, there was no SOT approval.
2. As the NOIM must be lodged 1-18 months before the marriage is solemnised, it is illegal for the celebrant to fill the NOIM form, hear the vows and give the couple a marriage certificate, all in the same day. The marriage would be declared invalid and the Celebrant open to prosecution.
3. ‘Surprise weddings’ where one of the parties to the marriage is ‘surprised’ in the manner described, are illegal.
4. Consent MUST be active, informed and current and since June 2024, Celebrants must meet privately and individually with parties to a marriage to clarify & ensure that consent. The description of events indicates that was not done.
5. Where a party is ‘forced’ into marriage, the persons involved (other than the victim of course) have committed an offence that can carry a 7-9 years prison sentence.

You and/or your friend can report the matter to the Attorney General at 'Complain about a marriage celebrant | Attorney-General's Department', and to Federal Police as it appears from your description of events, that the marriage is invalid and that various crimes have been committed, even if the marriage is not registered.

Hi there,

So sorry to hear that your friend was put under pressure to marry. This really needs to be addressed and may I recommend that your friend gets in touch with the Attorney Generals Department (AG). There needs to be consent when you marry and this doesn't quite sound like that was obtained. Secondly, the NOIM has to be completed one month prior to the marriage. If the marriage documents weren't lodged with Births Deaths and Marriages (BDM) then it sounds like your friend needs some guidance from the AG's Office. Only they can see how to move forward and give accurate directives. The name of the celebrant should be shared with the AG, and they should be able to explain how to obtain a form to lodge a complaint, and also how to obtain the wedding null and void.  

I do hope the above is of help.

All the very best,

Petra

PH Celebrants

You're absolutely right—Australian marriage law requires that the Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM) be lodged at least one month before the wedding ceremony takes place (unless an official shortening of time was granted under special circumstances).

If the NOIM was filled out and the ceremony conducted on the same day, without a special shortening of time granted by an authorised authority, then the marriage was not legally valid. The celebrant may have acted unlawfully, and your friend should report this to the Attorney-General’s Department or the Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages (BDM) in their state.

If the marriage has not been registered yet, she may not need a formal annulment or divorce. Since the legal process was not followed correctly, it’s possible that the marriage is not legally binding in the first place.

Next steps would be to contact the Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages and confirm whether the marriage has been registered. If not, she can inform them of the situation and request that it not be processed. 

Report the Celebrant. If the celebrant broke the law, they can be reported to the Attorney-General’s Department for misconduct.

Would you like help finding specific contacts for your friend's location?

a.

As my colleagues also state, this sounds very irregular and you are correct in saying that the NOIM should be signed at leasrt a month prior to the wedding.

Hi! I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s situation. Marriage is a significant commitment, and it’s important that both parties enter into it freely and without pressure.

To answer your question, in Australia, the NOIM must be lodged at least one month before the wedding (unless a special shortening of time has been granted by a prescribed authority under exceptional circumstances). This means that, under normal circumstances, a celebrant cannot legally complete the NOIM and conduct the marriage on the same day.

If the NOIM was not lodged at least one month prior, and no legal exemption was granted, then the marriage ceremony was not legally valid and, if it's reported, the celebrant will lose their registration.

For a marriage to be legally recognised, the celebrant must submit all required paperwork to Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) for registration after the ceremony. If your friend wishes to prevent the marriage from being registered, she should contact the the BDM Registry in the state or territory where the ceremony took place as soon as possible. If the marriage has already been registered, she may need to seek legal advice about annulment or other legal options.

I’d recommend that she speaks with a family lawyer or that she contacts BDM directly for guidance on her specific situation. If she feels that she was forced into the marriage or was unable to give free and informed consent, she may also wish to reach out to support services for advice.

Best of luck, I hope this helps. :) 

Marriage in Australia is only legal if there is full consent by both parties, and the marriage celebrant must confirm that before the wedding. Strictly speaking, the NOIM can be signed by one party and lodged with the celebrant a minimum of one month prior to the marriage, and then the second party can sign on the day, but the celebrant must still fulfil their obligations and talk to BOTH parties before the wedding to check consent.

I cannot make a judgement on this particular case, but what you have described to me does not sound like a legal marriage. I would suggest the unwilling party talk to the attorney general's department about their concerns and lodge a complaint against the celebrant directly with them.

You can find more details at: https://www.ag.gov.au/families-and-marriage/marriage/get-married

I hope everything works out ok.

The NOIM must be signed and lodged with the celebrant at least 1 month prior to the marriage, it is illegal for this to be done on the day.  It is also illegal to have forced marriages in Australia, in fact the Attorney Generals office introduced new legislation last year which celebrants must interview each of the couples individually to confirm 'real consent'.  Therefore the Celebrant who has performed this ceremony without following these rules is in breach of the legislation.

This almost sounds like a 'surprise' wedding, which are illegal. The most important take-away here is that the Notice of Intended must be signed by at least one party and submitted to their Celebrant no later than 'one month prior to the wedding'. I tell my couples 31 days, just to be on the safe side.

The NOIM can be signed on the wedding day, but only if it already has one partner's signature on it, made on the day that the NOIM was submitted to their Celebrant, no later than one month prior to the wedding. A Celebrant can accept a Notice of Intended Marriage with only one signature on it, as long as that signature is obtained before the oe month cut-off, and that the outstanding signature is obtained prior to the ceremony.

As the Declaration of No Legal Impediment is required to be signed 'as close to the wedding as possible' (the BDM suggests the day before), it is possible to get the outstanding signature at that point. The missing signature MUST be obtained before the ceremony begins.

Also, how recently were they married? The Celebrant should, at some point prior to the ceremony, have spoken to each party, separately, and in private, to ask them if they were:

• 100% consensual to the wedding.
• 100% cognisant of the ramifications of their actions.

This requirement was made law last year.

I hope this helps.