Court Marriage and Marriage Registration Guides for Delhi NCR

Start with your situation, not with a title

These guides are long because the subject is, but you almost certainly need one or two of them rather than all ten. Find your row below and start there.

The five things every guide assumes you already know

If you read nothing else on this page, read this section. It is the spine that runs through all ten guides, and it is where most of the wrong information on the internet lives.

1. There are three routes, not one. Solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (a civil marriage, for any two people who meet section 4, with no conversion). An Arya Samaj ceremony under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, followed by registration under section 8. Or registration of a wedding that already happened. Which one you need is decided by your facts, not by what a service is selling.

2. The government fee is small. The Delhi Revenue Department's own published procedure says Rs 15 is deposited with the cashier of the District for solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act, and Rs 100 with the Marriage Clerk for registration under the Hindu Marriage Act. Clause 4 of the Delhi Order, 2014 sets Rs 200 for registration under that Order. Every larger figure you see described as a 'government fee' is somebody's service charge wearing a government label.

3. The 30-day notice cannot be waived. Section 5 requires the notice, section 6 requires it to be published in the Marriage Notice Book, section 7 gives thirty days for objections, and section 46 makes a Marriage Officer who solemnises in contravention of the Act liable to imprisonment and fine. That is why no SDM in Delhi will shorten it - it is his liberty at stake, not a fee.

4. Section 14 is the deadline nobody warns you about. If the marriage is not solemnised within three months of the notice, the notice and all proceedings on it lapse and a fresh notice is required. Couples file, travel, return in the fourth month and start from zero.

5. Delhi's map changed on 1 January 2026. Eleven districts and 33 sub-divisions became 13 and 39. Three districts were created, Shahdara stopped being a district, seven sub-division names were dropped and four moved. Any page that sends you to the Kanjhawala or Kotwali sub-division office was written before that and has not been checked since.

Choosing your route

Three guides for the decision itself. Most couples who read these change their mind about which route they need, which is the point.

• Court Marriage Delhi Complete Guide 2026 - the full civil route from first visit to certificate: the four conditions in section 4, the notice, the objection window, witnesses, what the officer asks on the day, and what the certificate under section 13 is worth as evidence.
• Court Marriage vs Arya Samaj Marriage - a side-by-side comparison built on eligibility, speed, cost and what each certificate actually proves. Includes the case where neither is right and plain registration is the answer.
• Same Day Arya Samaj Marriage Reality - what a same-day ceremony genuinely is, what it is not, and why a same-day court marriage is a promise nobody can keep. Written because this is where couples lose the most money.

The Special Marriage Act, in depth

Two guides for the couple already on the civil route, or trying to decide whether they can survive it.

• Special Marriage Act Notice Period in Delhi - the thirty days day by day, what publication under section 6 actually means, the section 14 three-month lapse, what a lawful objection under section 7 looks like against what family disapproval looks like, and the Delhi High Court's 8 April 2009 direction that notices are not to be sent to the parties' homes - treated as prima facie contempt in Parveen Bano v. Chandra Shekhar, SDM South West (12 August 2021).
• Witness Rules for Court Marriage Delhi - three witnesses for solemnisation, two for registration, who can and cannot serve, what they must carry, what happens when a witness does not turn up, and how to arrange witnesses when you know nobody in the city.

Arya Samaj and weddings that already happened

Two guides for the Hindu-marriage route and for the very large group of couples who are already married and only need the paperwork.

• Arya Samaj Marriage Documents in Delhi - the checklist that actually clears the counter: age proof, identity, address, photographs, affidavits, witnesses, and the registration step that must follow the ceremony for the certificate to be of any use.
• Marriage Registration After Temple Wedding - how to register a temple, mandir, social or family wedding: what proof of the ceremony the office expects, what to do when the wedding was years ago, and how late registration is handled in Delhi.

When the family is the problem

Two guides for the couples who write to us at midnight. These are written with the assumption that privacy and safety come before paperwork.

• Inter Caste Marriage Legal Support Delhi - what the law does and does not require of an inter-caste or interfaith couple, why no conversion is needed under the Special Marriage Act, how document doubts are resolved, and how to keep the process as private as the statute allows.
• Love Marriage Protection Delhi NCR - the practical and legal planning for a couple facing opposition: what protection is available, what to do first, what not to do, and how to keep a paper trail without escalating a situation.

After the certificate

One guide, and it is the one people wish they had read before choosing their route.

• Marriage Certificate Use for Passport, Visa and Bank - what the certificate does for a passport application, a spouse visa, a bank account, an insurance nomination, an HR record and a property or succession claim; why an institution's certificate is not the same as a government registration; and when apostille or embassy attestation becomes necessary.

How these guides are written

A guide starts with a question a real caller asked, not with a keyword. Somebody rings and says 'my divorce came through in March, can we marry next week' - that becomes a section about the appeal window, not a paragraph about court marriage in general.

Then the primary sources are read and the answer is written in order, with the awkward parts included rather than skipped. Every number, date, section reference and fee is traced back to its source; anything that cannot be traced is removed rather than softened. Where we describe how an office behaves rather than what a rule says, it is labelled as practice, because practice varies between sub-divisions and is not law.

We do not use another firm's website as a source of fact. That is exactly how the Rs 5,000 'government fee' and the one-day court marriage got into circulation - one page copied the page above it until nobody remembered where the number came from.

A guide's last-reviewed date moves only when the guide's content actually changes. A page that re-stamps itself with today's date every night is lying to you and to search engines. So an older date on this site is not a warning sign - it means the law on that page has held. The full method, and how to send us a correction, is on our editorial and review policy page.

When a guide is not enough

These guides are information. They are not advice on your matter, because we have not seen your documents, your decree or your dates - and those are exactly what change the answer.

If you want a second pair of eyes, send four things on WhatsApp and you will get a straight answer: both of your ages, whether a ceremony has already taken place, whether either of you was married before, and which area of Delhi you live in. Route advice and a document pre-check cost nothing, and if your matter is simple enough to do yourself, we will tell you that too.

For the service pages behind these guides, see all services and guides. For the SDM office your file actually goes to, see all 39 Delhi sub-divisions.