Australia’s Peak Celebrant Body
CoCA thanks celebrants for the 81 responses below and others sent to us as a part of our industry wide survey.
CoCA presented this submission to the Marriage Law and Celebrant Section on 1st December 2014 as the result of your feedback: 2014 Marriage Forms CoCA Submission
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Saturday, 04 October 2014 10:19
My main concern is the Notice of Intended Marriage Form - it appears that there has been so much more information required and it is all squashed into the same amount of space as on the old form. This needs to be addressed. If it means that the NIM has to run to an extra page, then so be it. Also the boxes need to be bigger for the Given names and some other information boxes also.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Saturday, 04 October 2014 09:01
As all the forms are new to me, being a New Celebrant. I am certainly interested in what others are requesting as it draws my attention to the details of the forms.
My only request would be that the Pink books remain as is...
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 22:06
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the new forms.
I am concerned that after the expense of purchasing pink books, after 31st December 2014 we are not permitted to use them. I would like to ask the AGD why can't we continue to use our pink books till they are used up?
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 21:48
I have no problem with the new forms being introduced as we need to keep up to date and make progress, however, I do believe that us celebrants should have been issued with new forms at no cost to us because we have old forms that are unusable and it is a costly exercise to replace them. Thank you
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 21:08
Rather than end up paying for NOIM's through CANPRINT, (because so many Celebrants and one less expense, because let's face it, there are so many Celebrants, that we have to cost cut), I have saved the NOIM from the AG's website, rather than pay for the originals from CANPRINT and because it is easier, but just doesn't look that professional, to be honest.
Today, 3/4/2014, I received a Certificate to say that I am an Authorised Marriage Celebrant for the ensuing year, with a little card that would fit in a wallet, that says the same. No barcode, no nothing, I could have written that in Microsoft Word, presented it to couples and no one would be any the wiser. Not sure if it is great.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 19:12
That the Official Certificate of Marriage and the Declaration as to no Impediment have space for Celebrant's Registration No. to be included.
BDM tell me that if a handwritten Certificate is prepared, and is hard to read, they have no way of validating the authenticity of the Celebrant from those particular documents.
The NOIM address box on the PDF versions - should be able to press ENTER to go to another line for a long address, but am unable to.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 18:40
NOIM
As I have a very Large Surname , the celebrant box is too small also the form is very higgledy piggledy being all over the place ---it is out poorly set out. The previous form could have amended, without a great deal of difficulty to include the new sections as the box for qualified witnesses has now been removed. There many poor design aspects and suffers from bloating
Cert of Marriage
Very poorly composed what were they thinking?????
again this could have been redesigned and amended to accommodate the minor changes now it looks absolutely atrocious
They have not learnt from the 2003 debacle with the Cert of Marriage.
Like the story goes about the hairdresser who listens all the while what the stakeholder wants done but goes and does their way..again the boxes for the signature is too small but have a big section to enter
the celebrants Authorisation number .
It is indeed very poorly planned, poorly constructed poorly laid out, and celebrants should have been in on the consultation stage. Many points lost on this as this also suffers from bloating
The No Legal Impediment form
this is a nightmare
It should started from scratch I have had a close look at this by turning on the paragraph markers, I am mortified at the number of inserts, page and sections markers in this.
It's not hard if you know what you are doing. In order to use the "Autocorrect" I had to delete part of the section and remove the formatting and number of locked boxes and anchors that did not need to be in there.
I find the whole process confronting when we as Civil celebrants are being charged an Annual registration Charge to make celebrants "Professional" but we don't have that in return
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 14:55
New NIM does not leave sufficient space for details of place marriage conducted.
Poorly set out.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 14:36
The new Notice of Intended Marriage is laughable, plenty of wasted space that could have used for larger boxes in which to enter important details - they are now even smaller than the old form and it was difficult enough trying to fit the birth certificate numbers in those, also for the photographic I/d most passports have 1 letter and 7 digits no way can you fit them in the box!! Too many pages make the form look far more complex for the couple marrying and the printing is too small - in my opinion a total waste of time changing them - it should be to make completing them easier i.e in being able to read and understand. Dreading using them.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 14:31
My experience is I find the forms do nor provide enough space for addresses on NOIM.The space provided for where the marriage will take place needs to be enlarged. Also when more than one marriage has previously taken place there needs to be space provided for that.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 13:23
I have a life time supply of the current forms. Am I going to be able to continue to use them or is this change for change sake going to cost me more money?
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 09:56
New form is much more practical than the old large size. Being able to type directly onto the N.O.I.M forms would be much more practical as would spaces relevant to information required.
03/10/2014 - 09:56 546
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 08:26
When you fill in details that are a bit longer such as an address or a name, it does not shrink to the size of the box, therefore is useless for printing purposes.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 07:59
The new forms are not as professional looking as the old ones. The Notice of Intended Marriage has formatting problems. The boxes are poorly laid out with big gaps between those that relate to each other, eg the tick box for the Driver's licence and the box for the licence number. Some boxes are longer than needed while others are too small. There is only provision and not enough space even for one party who has been divorced let alone two.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 07:30
New NIM does not leave sufficient space for details of place marriage conducted.
Poorly set out.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 06:53
Once you get your head around the method of doing the forms it is not to bad, BUT there is to many things that can go wrong and we don't know about these as there is no warning e.g. All surname use to be in CAP LOCK not now they are to be written as : "Smith" but no one tells you this--all the responsibility is on our shoulders ,i.e. spelling mistake, keep copies, I sent in an application for a Marriage Certificate, they spelt the "mother of the Bride" name incorrectly and said that it was my fault and wanted to charge the bride for an amending to the certificate, I had a copy of my paper work (lucky) and after a LONG phone call got it fixed for free!!! I thought that we were all to work together, but it seems that if they can make MORE MONEY from us or our clients that's o.k now I am on my high horse (lol) hope this help as I could go on for hours
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Friday, 03 October 2014 00:09
There needs to be a section on the gov website that just lists out "straightforwardly" - these documents have changed and list them. Followed by "as of 1st Jan, these documents will need to be repurchased from can print and another list". I also thing as part of the OPD they should put this information in there to reinforce the changes.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Thursday, 02 October 2014 23:20
The new NOIM is very clunky and needs to be made simpler and streamlined. I agree with another celebrant that just needed to change the overseas passport line to just passport and kept the rest of old form the same.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Thursday, 02 October 2014 23:13
The new NOIM is very clunky and needs to be made simpler and streamlined. Instead of altering old form, needs to be redesigned.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
Thursday, 02 October 2014 21:51
Just a couple of things
1.Could Australia be the automatic pop-up for country of birth etc.?
2. Could all the Groom's details be on one page-much better formatting?
Is it necessary to ask if both Groom and Bride have received Doc 42 (5a)? Only one needs to have received it.
COMMONWEALTH MARRIAGE CELEBRANT - NAME SUPPLIED & VERIFIED
