We aren't super big on marriage, I like the idea of a wedding and changing my name so I'm less connected to my family (we don't get on). My partner just always assumed he would be married, when we first got together I agreed that if things worked out we would get married before he turned 30 (he's 25 in July). We got engaged because we wanted to start a family of our own and we both come from religious families (we ourselves are not religious), being engaged just helped them accept we were having a baby out of wedlock because our families assumed we would get married soon anyway.

Anyway, we don't have pretty much any disposable income, we moved house not realising just how bad the local economy we were moving to was - there is very little work available and it's been 2 years since my partner was in work. Luckily we had savings, but they're all gone at this point. We're working on our educations so we can become a midwife (me) and a mathematics teacher (him), we both want careers that will always be needed so once we finish training we're confident of getting placements quickly (we also hope to move to somewhere the local economy is a bit better at that point). My concern is, if we get married we have to register our kids again. This includes paying a fee per child. Would it just be better to save up for a few months and go to the registry office? I don't want to cause arguments in the family over who gets to be our 2 witnesses, and his family are Turkish so they expect big weddings with the whole extended family present.

What would you do in this situation? I'm not sure if we should just sign the paperwork before we have more kids to save on paying a fee or wait a few years to have a 'proper' wedding. Or if we should bother getting married at all.