Wedding venues in Ghent

Getting married in Ghent

Ghent offers more than one place for a civil wedding. At the late Gothic City Hall, weddings take place on Wednesdays, and on Fridays and Saturdays as a more formal ceremony, the praalhuwelijk. On Fridays you can also marry in the Gravensteen, the Castle of the Counts: in the Knights’ Hall on the first floor of the keep, or in the smaller Suikerlade above the gatehouse, with room for one couple each time. From 1 May to 30 September you can also marry outdoors on a Friday, in the garden of St Peter’s Abbey; in bad weather the ceremony moves to the Tussen Hemel en Aarde room. On Wednesdays, except in August, weddings also take place at a local service centre (dienstencentrum).

You’ll find free time slots in the city’s wedding calendar, up to a year ahead. Email your choice to the Huwen en Samenwonen (Marriage and Cohabitation) office with a mobile number and both your national register numbers; confirmation comes by email. Your slot has to adjoin one that is already booked. That booking is not yet the marriage notice: you give that by appointment at the Stadskantoor on Woodrow Wilsonplein, no earlier than six months and no later than six weeks before the date. At least one of you must be legally resident in Ghent. There are no weddings during the Gentse Feesten, the city’s ten-day festival.

A standard ceremony lasts about ten minutes. With a praalhuwelijk you can add roughly ten more minutes of your own, with readings, music or poems; ask for it when you book. No more than two people may speak, for at most eight minutes between them. At City Hall the ceremony may be recorded to watch later, but not streamed live. At the Gravensteen you can offer a toast of about half an hour after the ceremony, bringing your own glasses, drinks and snacks. The Gravensteen and St Peter’s Abbey both require a site visit at least four weeks before the wedding. The abbey also has rooms for a reception or an evening party.

Ghent is the capital of East Flanders and lies where the Leie and the Scheldt meet. Its historic centre holds the guild houses of the Graslei and Korenlei, the Belfry, St Bavo’s Cathedral and the Gravensteen, the only medieval castle still standing in Flanders. Around the centre lie districts such as Drongen, Mariakerke, Sint-Amandsberg and Zwijnaarde. Guests arriving by train get off at Gent-Sint-Pieters, one of Belgium’s busiest stations, or at a smaller one such as Gent-Dampoort; De Lijn runs trams and buses around the city.