I've just received the marriage certificate of a couple getting married in 1877 in Bolton. I found out it was 1877 from findmypast but when I went on the Lancashire Parish Registers website I was confused to not be able to find their marriage transcription. Their subsequent children were all baptised and I could see their baptism transcriptions and then later on the burials of the couple in question but no marriage.
Upon receiving the marriage certificate in the post, I found that they were married in Bolton Register Office. Neither had been married before, they had no previous children and based on dates of their children the wife wasn't pregnant at the time of their marriage.
So I'm wondering why they got married in a register office and not a church??
Thanks
