text: **EXPLANATORY NOTE**
  
  *(This note is not part of the Regulations)*
  
  These Regulations provide for records of marriages to be kept in churches and chapels of the 
  Church of England and the Church in Wales, other than chapels to which Part 5 of the Marriage 
  Act 1949 applies (naval, military and air force chapels). 
  
  Regulation 2 requires parochial church councils to provide books known as “registers of marriage 
  services” to churches and chapels in their parish in which banns of matrimony may be published, 
  for the purposes of keeping the records required by regulation 3. Regulation 2 also imposes 
  requirements relating to the durability and pre-printed content of these registers, and provides that 
  they belong to the parochial church council. 
  
  Regulation 3 requires specified information to be recorded in a register of marriage services when 
  a marriage has been solemnized on or after 4th May 2021 according to the rites of the Church of 
  England or Church in Wales in a church or chapel in which banns of matrimony may be 
  published. The record must be made and signed by the member of the clergy by whom the 
  marriage was solemnized. 