Getting Married at Home Affairs: Booking, Documents and What Happens on the Day

A Home Affairs marriage booking is still made the old-fashioned way: you go to your nearest Home Affairs office, ask for the marriage officer, and they give you a date. The department’s online booking system is for smart ID cards and passports, not marriages. On the day you bring your IDs and two witnesses, the ceremony takes a few minutes, and you walk out legally married with a handwritten certificate, without paying for the ceremony.

It’s the simplest, cheapest way to get married in South Africa, and plenty of couples use it as the legal half of a bigger plan: Home Affairs on a weekday, then a beach ceremony and a long dinner with everyone on the weekend.

Here’s how the booking works, what to bring, what happens in the office, and how to pair it with a celebration later. This is general information, not legal advice, so confirm the details with your Home Affairs office.

How do you book a marriage at Home Affairs?

Go to the office in person. Home Affairs’ own FAQ says you need to book, and that the marriage officer will give you a date for the two of you and your witnesses to come in. The department’s online Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS) is for smart IDs and passports, so book a marriage directly with the office.

Take your IDs (or your partner’s ID number, if only one of you can go) and a few possible dates. While you’re there, ask:

• Which days and times the office conducts marriages, and how far ahead it’s booked up.
• How many guests may come into the room with you.
• Whether a photographer can come in.
• What they want to see if you have an antenuptial contract.
• For same-sex couples: whether the office conducts civil unions. Home Affairs publishes a list of offices that do, so check it before you go.

Book as early as you can if you need a particular date. And you don’t have to marry near the beach where you’ll celebrate: if you live in Johannesburg or Cape Town, do the legal part at an office near home and bring the certificate to the coast.

What documents do you need for a Home Affairs wedding?

According to Home Affairs’ marriages page, you need:

• An identity document for each of you. A South African ID book or smart ID card; anyone without one completes the Declaration of Marriage (form DHA-31, available at Home Affairs offices).
• Your two witnesses’ IDs, or passports if they’re foreign nationals.
• A final decree of divorce if either of you has been divorced, or the death certificate of your late spouse if you’re widowed.
• Written consent from parents or guardians if either of you is under 18.
• Your antenuptial contract, if you have one.

If one of you is a foreign national marrying a South African, add a valid passport, a letter of no impediment from their own country, the DHA-31 and an immigration report. Home Affairs says an immigration interview is a prerequisite, so start that process months ahead; getting married in South Africa as a foreigner explains it.

The law asks for two competent witnesses, so choose adults with ID who will be there in person. They don’t have to be family, and they don’t have to be South African.

Check your status before the day, not on it

Home Affairs asks everyone who intends to marry to verify their status on the National Population Register first. Do it when you book, at the same office. If either of you is still shown as married (a divorce that was never updated, or a fraudulent marriage you knew nothing about), the office won’t be able to register your marriage until it’s fixed. The SMS check that older articles mention no longer works; our guide to checking your marital status with Home Affairs explains the current route.

Sort out the antenuptial contract first

If you don’t sign an antenuptial contract before you marry, you’re married in community of property. If you want one, it must be signed before a notary before the Home Affairs date, which is your legal wedding date even if the party is weeks later.

Home Affairs’ marriages page goes a step further than the law. It says couples should register their antenuptial contract with the Deeds Office before approaching Home Affairs to marry, whereas the Deeds Registries Act gives three months after signing to register it. To avoid an argument at the counter, sign early enough for registration to be finished, and bring proof. Antenuptial contracts explained covers the process and the choice between accrual and no accrual.

What happens at Home Affairs on the day?

Arrive early with every document and both witnesses. A typical Home Affairs wedding goes like this:

1. Documents. The marriage officer checks your IDs, your witnesses’ IDs and any supporting papers.
2. The ceremony. It’s short and to the point. The officer asks each of you, in turn, to declare that as far as you know there’s no lawful impediment to the marriage and that you take the other as your lawful husband or wife, with everyone present as witnesses. You give each other your right hands, and the officer declares you lawfully married.
3. Rings and a kiss, if you like. Ask beforehand whether there’s time for anything more personal, such as short vows.
4. The register. You, your witnesses and the marriage officer sign the marriage register straight away, and you add your thumbprints.
5. The certificate. The marriage officer gives you a handwritten marriage certificate (form DHA-27), free of charge.

Wear whatever you like. Some couples go in jeans with the dress saved for the beach; others arrive fully dressed with the photographer waiting outside. Either way, keep the rest of the morning flexible in case the office runs late.

Your marriage certificate and what comes next

Keep the handwritten DHA-27 safe: it’s your proof of marriage while the marriage is captured on the population register. After that you can apply for a computer-printed certificate. If you’ll need the marriage recognised abroad (for a visa, emigration or registering it in another country), you need the unabridged certificate. Home Affairs says that since 31 March 2025 it has issued unabridged certificates for civil marriages on the spot at all its offices. The fee schedule lists the first abridged marriage certificate as free, with fees of R20 or R75 for further certificates depending on the type, so ask at the counter what you’ll pay for an unabridged one.

Our guide to the unabridged marriage certificate covers apostilles and foreign use, and changing your surname after marriage has the checklist if either of you is taking a new name.

Home Affairs now, beach ceremony later

Splitting the legal part from the celebration is common, and it works well on this coast. You’re legally married from the Home Affairs date. The beach ceremony a few days or months later is a celebration, so it doesn’t need a marriage officer, and the person leading it can be a friend, a family member or a minister (a minister may also bless a marriage that a marriage officer has already solemnised).

What it frees you to do:

• Choose the time by the light and the tide, not by a marriage officer’s diary. A sunset ceremony is easier to plan when nobody has to sign anything. Timing a sunset ceremony helps.
• Write the ceremony you want: vows, readings, a sand or ring ceremony, both languages if your families need them.
• Keep the legal part small. Two witnesses, your parents, perhaps a lunch afterwards.

A few things to settle in advance:

• Be honest with guests. Most people are relaxed about it, but it’s kinder to tell close family that you’ll already be married than to let them find out from the certificate date.
• Remember the antenuptial contract is tied to the Home Affairs date, not the party.
• Beach rules still apply. A celebration on a public beach can still need permission from the municipality or park; see beach wedding permits in the Eastern Cape.

Is a Home Affairs wedding right for you?

If you’d like the legal part and the ceremony to happen together on the sand, the marriage officer guide explains how to choose and check one. If you’re happy to keep them apart, Home Affairs is hard to beat on cost and simplicity.

Either way, the celebration is where we come in. Tarika plans and styles beach, farm and garden weddings between Gqeberha and Plettenberg Bay, and takes on elopement-sized weddings when the diary allows. See how our wedding planning works, or send us your date.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Laws, fees and Home Affairs procedures change, so confirm the details with the Department of Home Affairs, your marriage officer, a notary or an attorney before you rely on them.