Yorkshire registrar retires after marrying thousands of couples | UK News

“Someone joked that I must have married half of North Yorkshire by now,” Alicia Butcher says with a wry smile.

Over the past 48 years, Mrs Butcher has officiated at countless weddings – in the thousands, she estimates – and has seen “nearly every type of celebration you can think of”.

Until her retirement in July, she was a registrar, conducting marriages for couples across the county, including those of her two children and grandchild.

From unusual ringbearers to sobbing grooms and chatty children, the 82-year-old from Northallerton has plenty of stories from the significant role she’s played in many people’s special day.

According to Mrs Butcher, one thing that still never fails to amaze her is how each wedding is unique – some more so than others.

“One couple wanted to bring their chickens to the registry office, but I’d just had a new carpet laid and you know what chickens do,” she says.

“But they did bring their lurcher, who was as good as gold.”

Pets have featured quite heavily in her previous ceremonies; so much so that one of her colleagues described her as an “animal magnet”.

And despite the old adage warning against working with children or animals, some of her best memories involve either or both.

Perhaps surprisingly, owls and dogs make good ringbearers, but children often have “no idea what’s going on at all”, she says.

“A family friend reminded me that as a precocious five-year-old he had led a round of applause in the middle of his father’s wedding ceremony.

“He didn’t wait for the end because he’d decided he’d had enough.”

Adults in the wedding party can be just as unpredictable too, especially on a day where emotions can run high.

With a twinkle in her eye, she recalls one groom who was confident he could make it through a reading, only to nearly collapse in tears at the sight of his bride.

At one of her most recent ceremonies, everyone stood for the entrance of the bride – only to be surprised by a drag queen, in full bridal regalia.

“That’s the first time that’s happened,” she laughs.

“They did it because they thought it would be funny. It’s difficult to pull it back, when people have a really good laugh like that, to then settle them.”

She’s even wholeheartedly thrown herself into a theme when the occasion requires it, once dressing up in medieval garb for a wedding at Bolton Castle.

Whatever the occasion, Mrs Butcher has learnt to adapt for each couple.

“People choose what they want for their wedding, and it’s our job to make sure what they want, they receive on the day,” she says.

“Sometimes it’s two witnesses at the hotel, sometimes it’s a hundred guests or more, you have to learn to project to your audience.

“I’m only 5’3” so sometimes people don’t realise I’m in charge.”

She first joined the North Yorkshire County Council Registry Office in 1976, after working as a nurse at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

She says the job suited her because she’d always loved talking to people; it was her husband, Brian, who suggested she applied for her first role as a deputy registrar, joking that it was “a nosy job”.

At first she thought she’d return to the medical profession after her children Janie and William grew older, but the registrar role was a perfect match.

“At primary school my children went from saying ‘mummy’s a nurse’ to saying ‘mummy marries men on Saturdays’ which was slightly confusing to the teacher!” she jokes.

For the past 22 years, Mrs Butcher has been a ceremonies registrar, travelling across North Yorkshire to perform the legally binding part of marriages or civil partnerships.

Since she joined the profession, there have been many changes to the way ceremonies are conducted, many of which are welcomed by her.

After the introduction of same-sex civil ceremonies, the legal language switched to use the term “single” for an unmarried person, which she and the other registrars embraced, having especially “loathed” the term “spinster” to refer to a woman.

One of the traditions she misses is spending more time with the couple prior to the wedding day, to get to know them better.

“By the time you got to the actual wedding ceremony, you felt you knew the whole family.

“Now you’ve only got five minutes or so, to find out the little details, make sure the bride is as calm as possible – and sometimes the groom as well.”

However, even that brief interaction can leave a lasting impression – Mrs Butcher has been greeted many times when she’s out and about in Northallerton by people who recognise her as their registrar.

Over the years she’s married multiple generations of the same family, including her own, having conducted the ceremonies of her children, and most recently, her granddaughter Josie.

“I don’t think I would feel married unless my grandma did the ceremony. She’s the best woman for the job,” Josie says.

As a child, she remembers attending weddings that her grandmother officiated and being amazed at how she put everyone at ease, “getting a laugh out of people”.

“Everyone used to say she made their day really special, so it was really big moment for me that she could perform our ceremony.”

After Mrs Butcher announced her retirement due to illness, Josie wanted to give people who might have fond memories of her grandmother a chance to share their wedding day stories.

“I was just thinking, walking down the street about how many people out of the population of the town we live in that she’s actually married,” she says.

“We’ve obviously very proud of her. Right now the world feels very divided but this little lady from North Yorkshire has really united people, and I think that’s such a lovely, inspirational thing.”

She’s encouraging people who Mrs Butcher may have married over the past five decades to get in contact to share updates beyond their wedding day.

Several couples have already been in touch, which according to her grandmother has been a lovely way to reminisce.

“Everyone has been so lovely – one person said that ‘time is a funny old thing, but you’re stitched into our memories’,” she says.

“The reason you do it is to make sure people have exactly the day they want.”