Which SDM office is yours, the sixty-day rule, what the government actually charges, the documents, the witnesses, the appointment — and what makes a file come back.
Quick answer: SDM marriage registration is how a marriage is entered in the Delhi government’s marriage register. The application goes to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate in whose jurisdiction either spouse resides — or, for a Hindu Marriage Act registration, where the marriage was solemnised. It should be reported within 60 days of the ceremony (Order 4(a), Delhi Compulsory Registration of Marriage Order, 2014); beyond that a ₹500 condonation or a ₹1,000 penalty applies. The government’s own fee is in tens and hundreds — ₹100 under the Hindu Marriage Act per the Delhi Revenue Department, ₹200 under Order 4(b). Two witnesses, both spouses present, counter hours 9.30 a.m.–1.00 p.m. Our assisted registration is ₹6,000, or ₹7,100 with the Arya Samaj ceremony.
People type this phrase into a search box every day, usually after someone at a bank or a passport office has asked for a marriage certificate and they have discovered that the one in their folder is not the right one. So before anything else, here is the plain meaning.
The Sub-Divisional Magistrate is a revenue officer of the Delhi government. He is not a judge, he does not sit in a court, and there is no hearing. In a marriage he performs one of two entirely different functions depending on which law you are on.
| Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 | Special Marriage Act, 1954 | |
|---|---|---|
| The SDM acts as | Registrar | Marriage Officer |
| Where the marriage happens | At your ceremony — mandir, home, banquet hall, village | In front of him, at his office |
| What he is doing | Recording a marriage that already exists | Solemnising and then recording it |
| Public notice | None | Thirty days, displayed |
| Witnesses | Two | Three |
| Who it is open to | Both parties Hindu, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist | Any two persons, any religions |
This is why the phrase "court marriage" is so misleading. What people call court marriage is, nine times out of ten, exactly this — an application to the SDM. There is no court, no judge, no case number and no vakalatnama, because there is no litigation. If somebody hands you a vakalatnama to sign "for your court marriage", ask what case it relates to; a marriage registration is not a case.
And a second point that saves a great deal of confusion later: under the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014, the SDM is not the only officer with this power. The Order gives concurrent jurisdiction to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, the Additional District Magistrate and the District Magistrate. Your application in practice goes to the SDM; the ADM and DM appear where the Order gives them something specific to do, such as remitting a penalty for late registration.
This is the first real decision in the process and the one most often got wrong, because a wrong office does not just cost you a morning — it can cost you a fortnight.
The Delhi Revenue Department's own instruction is that the application is made to the office of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate in whose jurisdiction any of the husband or wife resides.
Read the word any. It means either spouse's residence establishes jurisdiction — you do not both have to live in the same sub-division, and you do not both have to live in Delhi. For a couple where one partner has a clean Delhi address proof and the other does not, that single word is often the whole answer.
Delhi adds a second route for Hindu Marriage Act registration, and it rescues more couples than any other provision on this page: the marriage may be registered in the sub-division where it was solemnised, as well as where a party resides. So if the wedding took place at a mandir in Delhi, that mandir's sub-division is a legitimate basis — even where neither of you can produce a Delhi address at all.
Why no website can print the office name for your colony. The Delhi e-District portal allocates the office from your exact address, and since the reorganisation with effect from 1 January 2026 the city has thirteen districts and thirty-nine sub-divisions. Two addresses two hundred metres apart can fall in different sub-divisions. Any page — this one included — that prints one office name against a whole locality is guessing, and the guess is free for the writer and expensive for you. We check the allocation from your address before anything is filed.
Certificates issued before 1 January 2026 remain completely valid. The reorganisation changed where new applications go and which office now holds the old records; it did not touch the validity of anything already issued. Nobody needs to re-register, re-stamp or "renew" an existing certificate, whatever they are told.
A Delhi SDM registers Delhi marriages on a Delhi basis. If both of you live across a state line, the state line is what governs:
| Where you live | State | Where registration happens |
|---|---|---|
| Anywhere in Delhi's thirteen districts | Delhi | Delhi SDM, via e-District |
| Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Indirapuram, Vaishali, Loni, Khoda | Uttar Pradesh | UP's own process and portal |
| Gurugram, Palam Vihar, Faridabad, Bahadurgarh, Sonipat, Kundli | Haryana | Haryana's own process and portal |
The metro crossing a boundary does not move it. Anand Vihar is Delhi and Kaushambi, a two-minute walk away, is Uttar Pradesh; the Violet Line runs to Faridabad but the state boundary sits at Badarpur. And for the Special Marriage Act this matters even more, because a Delhi office cannot take a notice on a Noida or Gurugram address — filing in the wrong state does not merely delay, it restarts the thirty days somewhere else. Our pages for Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad set out each state's own rules.
Eligibility under the Hindu Marriage Act is exhausted by the five conditions in Section 5. There is no sixth.
| Condition | In practice |
|---|---|
| Neither party has a living spouse | A second marriage while the first subsists is void and an offence. A final decree of divorce or a municipal death certificate is needed — a pending case is not a divorce |
| Both capable of giving valid consent — s.5(ii) | Consent obtained by force or fraud makes the marriage voidable under s.12(1)(c) |
| Groom 21, bride 18 — s.5(iii) | Checked against documents, before anything else. Not "nearly", not "next month" |
| Not within the degrees of prohibited relationship — s.3(g) | Unless the custom governing each of them permits |
| Not sapindas of each other — s.3(f) | Three generations through the mother, five through the father — again subject to custom |
What is not on that list, and is therefore not a requirement of anything:
Caste — it appears nowhere in the Act. · Gotra — no legal standing. · Parents' consent — not a condition; two adults may marry without telling anyone. · Sub-community, income, employment or property. · A horoscope match. · Approval from a panchayat, biradari or any community body — and no such body can declare a valid marriage void; only a competent court can, in a proceeding to which both spouses are parties.
If an office asks you for any of those, there is a calm way to handle it that begins with asking which provision the requirement comes from. The full escalation ladder, including how to use the Right to Information Act to get a written answer within statutory timelines, is on our Mayur Vihar Phase 2 page.
The Revenue Department publishes its own list for Hindu Marriage Act registration, and it is shorter and more specific than the lists agents circulate.
| Document | Notes |
|---|---|
| Application form, signed by both husband and wife | Generated from the e-District application |
| Separate affidavits from husband and wife, in the prescribed format | The single most important paper in the file — see below |
| Self-attested proof of age | Municipal birth certificate is strongest, then matriculation certificate, then passport |
| Self-attested proof of residence | This is what establishes the office's jurisdiction |
| Passport-size photographs — two each | Plus photographs of the marriage ceremony |
| Marriage invitation card | The department's list says "if available" — keep it anyway, it cannot be reconstructed later |
| Priest's certificate | Where the marriage was solemnised at a religious place. For an Arya Samaj wedding this is the mandir certificate |
| Decree of divorce or death certificate | Where either party was married before. In original |
The department's list also refers to attestation involving a Gazetted Officer who attended the marriage. Couples read that and panic, imagining they must produce an officer from somewhere. In practice it concerns attestation of the affidavit and identification of the parties, and offices differ on what they will accept. Ask before you arrange anything — and do not let anyone sell you a gazetted officer as a service, any more than you should let them sell you witnesses.
| Problem | What works |
|---|---|
| Aadhaar shows your home state, not Delhi | It is perfectly valid identity and age proof. Only residence is a separate question — and the solemnised-in-Delhi route may remove it entirely |
| You live in a PG with nothing in writing | A simple letter from the owner confirming you live there, plus an affidavit. Or update Aadhaar to that address — free, and it removes the problem |
| The electricity bill is in a parent's or landlord's name | The bill plus proof of relationship plus an affidavit |
| You live in a hostel or staff quarter | A hostel room you actually occupy is a residence — unlike a hotel. Allotment letter on institutional letterhead plus an affidavit |
| Two documents disagree about a date of birth | Resolve it before filing. Identify the earliest and most authoritative record and bring the others into line with it, not the reverse. An affidavit does not create an age |
| No birth certificate at all | Delayed registration with the municipal authority is possible; meanwhile the matriculation record and passport carry the weight |
| Neither of you has any Delhi address | Tell us at the first call. The solemnised-here basis is usually the answer |
Our documents page works through every one of these in more detail, including what to do when a name is spelt differently on two papers.
Everything else in the file is a copy of something that already exists. The affidavit is the one document created specially for this application — and what the affidavit says becomes what your certificate says.
So before you sign, read four fields, every time: your name; your father's name; your date of birth; and the date and place of the marriage. Check your name against your strongest identity document character by character — not the version that "looks better", not with an initial expanded that is not expanded there.
The reason this matters out of all proportion to the thirty seconds it takes is that a correction afterwards is far slower than a duplicate. A duplicate simply reprints what the register already says. A correction has to change what the register says, which needs evidence and, in some cases, cannot be done at the counter at all. Thirty seconds now, or weeks later.
Notary attestation of an affidavit costs ₹100 to ₹200. That is a market rate, not a government fee, and it is worth knowing so that nobody quotes you a thousand.
Almost nobody knows this number until they need it, and it is written into the law that governs Delhi registrations.
Order 4(a) of the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 requires the marriage to be reported for registration within sixty days, excluding the day on which the final ceremony of marriage is solemnised.
Miss it and the Order has its own machinery — it does not slam a door.
| Situation | What the Order provides |
|---|---|
| Within 60 days of the ceremony | Ordinary registration. Order 4(b) sets a requisite fee of ₹200 |
| Beyond 60 days, up to a further 60 | Order 6 — the marriage officer may condone the delay on an additional fee of ₹500 |
| Beyond that | Order 7 — a penalty of ₹1,000, which the Additional District Magistrate or District Magistrate may remit |
Three consequences follow, and they are the ones that actually change what people do.
The amount does not grow with the years. A marriage from 2007 and a marriage from last spring face the same structure. If you have been postponing because you imagined the cost compounding, it does not — so the fee is never the reason to keep waiting.
A late registration is still a registration. Couples who conclude that they have "missed the chance" and stop are the ones who turn up twenty years later, holding a mandir certificate from the nineties, at exactly the wrong moment.
What actually decays is the evidence, not the right. Witnesses move cities and die. Photographs are lost with a phone. The mandir reorganises or closes. The two of you begin to disagree about whether the ceremony was a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Every year of delay makes the same application harder to prove, and none of that shows up as a fee.
The one absolute limit. Once a spouse has died, the marriage cannot be registered at all. There is no procedure for it — not with extra fees, not with an affidavit, not with a court order obtained for the purpose. Every year a family reaches us at the worst possible moment — a pension claim, a succession dispute, an insurance form — with an unregistered marriage and a death certificate, and there is nothing anyone can do. If you are reading this with an unregistered marriage behind you, this paragraph is the one to act on.
This is the section that protects you, so it is set out with its sources.
| Item | Amount | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Registration under the Hindu Marriage Act | ₹100, deposited with the Marriage Clerk | Delhi Revenue Department, marriage-registration page |
| Requisite fee under the 2014 Order | ₹200 | Order 4(b) |
| Solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act | ₹15, deposited with the cashier of the District | Delhi Revenue Department, marriage-registration page |
| Condonation of delay beyond 60 days | ₹500 additional fee | Order 6 |
| Penalty for non-registration | ₹1,000, remittable by ADM or DM | Order 7 |
| Notary attestation, per affidavit | ₹100–₹200 | market rate — not a government fee |
So the government's own side of an SDM marriage registration runs in tens and hundreds of rupees. Not thousands. Write that down before you speak to anybody.
There are two honest reasons a total goes higher than the figures above. The first is delay — the condonation fee or penalty, where they apply. The second is service: drafting and checking the affidavits so the file does not come back, filing at the correct office, attending, following up, and sorting out whatever the file throws up. That second one is a real cost and we publish ours openly on the fees page.
What is not an honest reason is an unexplained lump. If anyone tells you an office needs thousands to "process", "move", "clear" or "speed up" your file, ask two questions and stop talking until you have answers: which rule requires it, and can I have a receipt. Almost every such conversation ends at the second question.
And where a figure quoted at the counter differs from anything on this page, the counter is what you pay — with a receipt. Published schedules change and offices work to their current one. We keep no part of any government fee.
Delhi's marriage registration is half online and half in person, and confusing the two is why people think the process has stalled when it has not.
Step one — the marriage itself. Under the Hindu Marriage Act you must already be married before there is anything to register. If the ceremony has not happened, that comes first; registration records a marriage, it does not create one.
Step two — the affidavits. Drafted, sworn, attested. Read them. Four fields.
Step three — the e-District account and the application form. Names exactly as on your identity documents; dates exactly as on the strongest record; the address exactly as it appears on the residence proof you intend to upload.
Step four — the uploads. Identity, age, residence, photographs, the ceremony proof, and the decree or death certificate where there was an earlier marriage. Scan flat or photograph on a flat surface in daylight; a document shot at an angle with a thumb across the corner is a document that comes back.
Step five — the fee and the appointment. The portal allots the date. You do not choose it.
Step six — the appointment. In person, both spouses and both witnesses, all originals.
Step seven — the entry and the certificate. The marriage is entered in the register, and the certificate you receive is a copy of that entry.
There is no fully online marriage in India, and there is no proxy, power of attorney or video-call registration. Both parties attend in person. Anybody advertising otherwise is describing a thing that does not exist — and the person left holding whatever they produce is you, not them.
A name typed differently from the document. An initial expanded on the form and not on the Aadhaar; a surname on one and absent on the other; two English spellings of the same name. The portal cannot tell which is right. The counter can, and will.
An address that does not match the proof uploaded. This one is worse than it looks, because the address is what gives that office jurisdiction in the first place.
Unreadable uploads. Dark, angled, cropped, or a photograph of a screen.
A date of birth that two documents dispute. Not a portal problem and it will not pass at the counter either.
Assuming the appointment can be chosen. It is allotted by the office's load, and no service, contact or fee changes that. Anyone who promises you a specific date in advance is guessing with your morning.
Often, no — and we would rather say so on a free phone call than take a booking for typing. A couple with matching documents, a clean Delhi address proof, no earlier marriage and no deadline can file on e-District and attend the appointment perfectly well on their own. The government's charge is small and the portal is usable.
What a service is genuinely worth paying for is the file that will otherwise come back: an address in somebody else's name, a name spelt three ways, an earlier marriage, a ceremony from fifteen years ago with no paperwork left, a couple split across the Delhi–UP or Delhi–Haryana line, or a visa date at the far end that everything must be planned backwards from. Pay for the difficulty, not for the data entry.
Shorter and duller than people fear, and entirely survivable if four people turn up with the right paper.
Timing. The Revenue Department's marriage counter runs 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. on any working day. That is a morning window, not a whole day — so treat it as a morning off for four people, not "we'll go after lunch".
Who must attend. Both spouses and both witnesses. Nobody can attend for you. A brother who has the documents is not a substitute for the person named on them.
What to carry. Every original, in a single folder: identity, age, residence, the affidavits, the ceremony photographs, the mandir or priest's certificate, the invitation card if you have it, the decree or death certificate where relevant, and the witnesses' own original photo identity.
What the officer looks at. Identity of the two of you, against originals. Age, documentarily. Residence, because that is the jurisdiction. Proof that a marriage was in fact solemnised. Marital status, and the decree where there was an earlier marriage. Then the witnesses, present, signing there.
What he is not doing. Assessing your relationship. Asking about caste. Requiring anybody's parents. Judging the ceremony's scale or expense.
How long it takes. The appearance itself is usually short. The waiting is the part to budget for, which is why a morning slot and an early start matter more than anything you can arrange on the day.
The Revenue Department publishes its own service norms: matters under the Hindu Marriage Act are dealt with "normally within 15 days", and under the Special Marriage Act "normally within 60 days" — the longer figure being unsurprising, since the SMA contains a thirty-day notice before anything else can happen.
"Normally" is carrying weight in both. The appointment date is allotted by load; the file's own cleanliness decides the rest. What genuinely shortens the real-world timeline is not pressure but preparation: correct documents, matching spellings, witnesses with originals, and honesty about any earlier marriage.
He can decline to proceed on a defective file, which is different from a refusal on the merits. The ordinary reasons are ordinary: a name mismatch, a missing original, a witness who did not attend, an earlier marriage disclosed without a decree, or a residence that does not fall in that sub-division. Each is fixable, and fixing the thing is the remedy.
Where a demand genuinely has no basis in law, the answer is different, and it is not an argument across a counter. Ask which provision it comes from; ask for it in writing; ask the officer above; file a dated written representation and keep the acknowledgment; use the departmental grievance route; and, last, file an RTI, which compels a written answer within statutory timelines. That whole ladder, with the RTI periods set out, is on our Mayur Vihar Phase 2 page.
How many. Under Order 4(d) of the 2014 Order, two witnesses who shall certify to the solemnisation of the marriage. Under the Special Marriage Act, the Revenue Department's page states that both parties along with three witnesses are required.
Who qualifies. Any adult who was present at the marriage, genuinely knows both of you, and brings an original photo identity document on the day.
Who is not required, whatever anybody says. A relative. A Delhi resident. A property owner. Anybody's parent. A "respectable person" of any particular kind. A flatmate, a colleague, a neighbour, a friend from your home district — all perfectly good, and a home-state Aadhaar is a perfectly good witness document.
We do not provide witnesses, at any price, and neither should anybody else. A witness signs a statement that he was personally present at your marriage and knows who the two of you are. A stranger cannot honestly sign that. What it leaves behind is a defect that sits quietly in your papers for decades and then surfaces in a succession dispute, a visa check or a pension claim — long after the person who supplied him has forgotten your name. This is a contractual term for us, not a mood.
The commonest wasted appointment in the whole of this process is a witness who brought a photocopy. It is not close. Message both of them the night before, in writing, and use the word original. Confirm again two days out, and keep a third name in reserve — people agree weeks ahead and then a shift, an exam or a train appears.
For most couples who reach this page, the two are bought as one job, so it is worth being exact about how they join.
The Arya Samaj wedding is the ceremony. Havan, the vows, saptapadi. It creates the marriage under Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act — and where the rites include the saptapadi, Section 7(2) makes the marriage complete and binding at the seventh step. From that moment you are married, whatever paperwork does or does not exist.
The SDM registration is the record. It produces the government certificate, which is the document every institution actually asks for.
So the mandir certificate and the government certificate are not two versions of the same thing. The mandir certificate is precisely the priest's certificate that the Revenue Department's own document list asks for — it is an input to the registration, evidence that a ceremony took place, and that is a real and useful job. What it is not is the document a bank, passport office, embassy, insurer, pension office or employer will accept, because none of them can verify an institution's own paper against a register.
| What you want | What to take | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| A valid same-day ceremony and the mandir certificate | Arya Samaj marriage, ceremony only | ₹5,100 |
| The ceremony and the government certificate together | Arya Samaj + court marriage | ₹7,100 |
| You already had a ceremony — your own community's, or years ago | Hindu Marriage Act SDM registration | ₹6,000 |
| An old marriage where the proof has to be rebuilt | Marriage registration, full service | ₹12,000 |
| Different religions, neither converting | Special Marriage Act | ₹15,000 |
The honest line, which costs us money every time we say it: ₹5,100 makes you married. ₹7,100 makes you married and able to prove it. The couples we meet in their forties with a genuine problem are almost always the ones who stopped at the first figure meaning to come back.
And if your ceremony was not Arya Samaj at all — Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayali, Bengali, Odia, Marathi, north-eastern — that changes nothing. Section 7(1) allows the customary rites of either party, so your own priest's ceremony is a lawful solemnisation and registers under Section 8 exactly like any other. The row you want is the ₹6,000 one.
Where the parties cannot use the Hindu Marriage Act — most commonly because they follow different religions and neither wishes to convert — the same office handles the marriage under the Special Marriage Act, and the process is genuinely different.
Notice. Notice of the intended marriage is given to the Marriage Officer, entered in the Marriage Notice Book, and displayed publicly for thirty days. Where a party is not permanently resident in that district, a copy goes for display to the district where that party is permanently resident. For two people who both moved to Delhi for work, that means two copies going to two home districts at once.
Residence. The Revenue Department's list requires documentary evidence of stay in Delhi of one of the parties for more than thirty days.
Objections. An objection is only good if it says the marriage would breach a condition in Section 4 — a living spouse, incapacity to consent, being under age, or a prohibited relationship. Disapproval, caste, community and family plans are not grounds, however forcefully delivered. The Marriage Officer inquires and decides; his decision can be appealed to the district court, and the Act provides for costs where an objection was frivolous or vexatious.
Succession. Section 19 deems a marriage under the Act by a member of an undivided family professing the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion to effect severance from that family, and Section 21 shifts succession to the Indian Succession Act, 1925 — but Section 21A disapplies both where both parties profess the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion. So an inter-caste Hindu couple is saved; an inter-religion couple is not, and should take advice before notice is given.
If you are both Hindu, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist, you do not need the Special Marriage Act — and being told otherwise is the most expensive misunderstanding in this subject. A ceremony under Section 7 plus registration under Section 8 produces a government certificate that every institution treats identically, with no public notice, no thirty-day wait and two witnesses instead of three. We say this although it costs us the difference between ₹15,000 and ₹7,100 each time.
The day the certificate is issued, spend five minutes on this. It is the cheapest insurance in the entire process.
Check eight fields before you leave: both names, both fathers' names, both dates of birth, the date of the marriage, the place of the marriage, the registration number, the date of registration, and the issuing office. Compare the names against your strongest identity document, character by character. If something is wrong, say so that day — at that moment it is a correction in progress; six months later it is a procedure.
Then write down three facts, somewhere that is not the same folder as the certificate: the registration number, the date of registration, and the office. Put them in a notes app as well. If the certificate is ever lost — and over sixty years, things are — those three facts turn a months-long search into a week-long request.
Scan everything into an account only you control. Both of you, every document, the certificate, into an email or cloud account whose password nobody in either family knows. Twenty minutes, once, and it makes every future application easier as well as protecting you if documents are ever withheld.
| Duplicate | Correction | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Re-issues what the register already says | Changes what the register says |
| Evidence needed | Identity and the record's details | Documentary proof of the correct fact |
| Speed | Relatively quick | Noticeably slower; in some cases not a counter matter at all |
| Our fee | ₹2,500 | Depends on what has to be proved — ask |
Which is, one last time, why the affidavit deserves thirty seconds of your attention before you sign it. Our certificate page covers duplicates, corrections and apostille in full.
Only the government certificate travels. A mandir certificate cannot be apostilled and no foreign mission can verify it. The chain is: the SDM certificate → state-level authentication where required → MEA apostille for a Hague Apostille Convention country, or MEA attestation plus that country's embassy where it is not → certified translation where the destination asks for one. Budget two to six weeks, more with a translation, and plan backwards from the flight rather than forwards from the wedding. Our NRI marriage page has the whole chain and the tiers.
Not dramatic failures — ordinary ones, made by careful people, each costing a morning that four people took off work for.
| # | What went wrong | The fix, before you file |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A witness brought a photocopy | Message both, in writing, the night before. Use the word "original" |
| 2 | The name on the form does not match the Aadhaar character for character | Pick the spelling on your strongest identity document and use it everywhere, forever |
| 3 | Two documents disagree about a date of birth | Resolve it first. The office will see the same contradiction you are hoping it misses |
| 4 | The residence proof does not cover the sub-division applied to | Check the allocation from the exact address before filing |
| 5 | An earlier marriage, and only a pending case rather than a decree | A pending case is not a divorce. Produce the final decree, or wait |
| 6 | No proof that a ceremony took place | Photographs with witnesses visible, the priest's or mandir certificate, the invitation card |
| 7 | The electricity bill is in a father's name and nothing links you to him | Bill + relationship proof + affidavit |
| 8 | Uploads unreadable | Scan flat, or photograph on a flat surface in daylight |
| 9 | One spouse could not attend | There is no proxy. Rebook rather than improvise |
| 10 | The affidavit was signed unread and carries an error | Four fields, every time, before signing |
| 11 | Applied in Delhi on a Noida or Gurugram address | Different state, different process. Say so in the first conversation |
| 12 | Something was hidden and surfaced at the counter | Tell us at the start. There is almost always a lawful route; there is none for a surprise |
"Court marriage means going to court." It does not. What people call court marriage is an application to the SDM, who is a revenue officer. No judge, no case, no vakalatnama.
"Registration is what makes us married." No. The 2014 Order says so itself — Order 8 provides that registration under the Order "will not tantamount to validity of marriage." The ceremony creates the marriage; registration records it.
"Then an unregistered marriage is not valid." Also no, and it is the same clause read the other way. If the ceremony was properly performed you have been married since that day. What you lack is not validity but the ability to prove it to an institution.
"A registered marriage must be a valid one." No. If no ceremony took place, or a party had a living spouse, or a party was under age, the entry in the register cures none of it — and in 2024 the Supreme Court confirmed that where no ceremony took place a certificate proves nothing and the registration can be set aside.
"You need your parents' consent." Not a condition of anything. Section 5 lists five conditions and parental consent is not among them.
"The office will want a caste certificate." Caste appears nowhere in the Hindu Marriage Act. If it is asked for, ask which provision requires it.
"Paying more gets an earlier date." The appointment is allotted by the office's load. What money buys is a file that does not come back — which is a real saving of time, and a different thing from a promise about a date.
Published, identical for everyone, and the figure quoted on the phone is the figure at the counter. No surcharge for caste, religion, urgency or distance. Ask for the total on WhatsApp before you travel — it takes a minute and it is the cheapest protection in this process.
| Service | Fee | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Hindu Marriage Act SDM registration | ₹6,000 | Registration of a marriage already solemnised — affidavits, filing, appointment, follow-up |
| Arya Samaj marriage, ceremony only | ₹5,100 | Pandit, havan, saptapadi, mandir certificate, same day |
| Arya Samaj + court marriage, combined | ₹7,100 | Ceremony and SDM registration together — nothing left to come back for |
| Court marriage, advocate assisted | ₹6,100 | Drafting, affidavits, filing, appointment |
| Marriage registration, full service | ₹12,000 | End-to-end, where proof of an old marriage has to be rebuilt |
| Hindu–Muslim / inter-religion marriage | ₹10,000 | Shuddhi or Special Marriage Act route with certificate |
| Special Marriage Act marriage | ₹15,000 | Full process including the thirty-day statutory notice |
| NRI marriage + MEA apostille | ₹20,000 | Marriage, registration and the apostille chain |
| Court marriage + High Court protection (Premium) | ₹56,000 | Full court marriage and documentation plus a protection petition filed by an advocate |
| Duplicate certificate | ₹2,500 | Lost or damaged |
| Government statutory fee | as per office | Paid to government, not to us — see the sourced table above |
Not included, and told to you before you pay: the government statutory fee; notary charges of ₹100–₹200 per affidavit; any condonation fee or penalty where the registration is late; MEA apostille and embassy attestation where the certificate goes abroad; certified translation; and optional photography, video and transport. The full list with worked total-cost examples is on the fees page.
What we will not take money for, ever: witnesses; a shortened statutory notice; a certificate for a ceremony that did not happen; a back-dated document; a guaranteed appointment date; a guaranteed court or visa outcome; a marriage below the legal age; or a marriage while an earlier one subsists.
Every figure and clause on this page comes from a primary source, and we would rather name them than ask you to take our word.
Delhi Revenue Department, marriage-registration page — the ₹100 Hindu Marriage Act fee deposited with the Marriage Clerk; the ₹15 Special Marriage Act solemnisation fee deposited with the cashier of the District; the document lists for both Acts; three witnesses under the SMA and the requirement of documentary evidence of more than thirty days' stay in Delhi; the counter hours of 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. on any working day; the service norms of "normally within 15 days" under the HMA and "normally within 60 days" under the SMA; and the instruction that the application goes to the SDM in whose jurisdiction any of the husband or wife resides.
The Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 — Order 4(a) sixty days excluding the day of the final ceremony; Order 4(b) the requisite fee of two hundred rupees; Order 4(d) two witnesses who certify to the solemnisation; Order 6 condonation of a further sixty days on an additional five hundred rupees; Order 7 a penalty of one thousand rupees, remittable by the ADM or DM; Order 8 that registration under the Order will not tantamount to validity of marriage; and Orders 3 and 5 on concurrent jurisdiction.
The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — sections 3(f), 3(g), 5, 7, 8, 11 and 12. The Special Marriage Act, 1954 — the notice and its display, section 4, and sections 19, 21 and 21A.
On figures. Government fees and office practice change, and different offices work to their current schedule. Where a figure here differs from what you are told at the counter, the counter is what you pay — and you should get a receipt. Nothing on this page is legal advice on your own facts; we are a marriage service, not a law firm.
Almost every question on this page turns into a different answer depending on two things: where each of you actually lives, and what your documents actually say. So those are the two things to have ready.
Tell us your ages and what your documents show about them; your religions; whether either of you has been married before; where each of you lives and what the address proof says; whether either of you is across the Uttar Pradesh or Haryana line; whether the ceremony has already happened and when; and whether there is a deadline at the far end — a visa, a flight, a joining date.
We will tell you which route fits, which office it goes to, what the total is, what is not included, and how long it realistically takes. If the honest answer is that you can do it yourself, or that you should fix a document first, that is what you will hear.
Call or WhatsApp +91 8376863962. Hindi or English.
Expert articles on every marriage topic — read before you decide
Complete 2026 process from notice to certificate.
Read Article →Full checklist — Aadhaar, affidavits, witnesses.
Read Article →Transparent breakdown — official + service costs.
Read Article →Your rights, family pressure, police protection.
Read Article →Apostille, Embassy NOC, spouse visa explained.
Read Article →Honest truth about Arya Samaj same-day option.
Read Article →