Gretna Green thousands of weddings. Today there are several wedding venues in and around Gretna Green, from former churches to purpose-built chapels. The services at all the venues are always performed over an iconic blacksmith's anvil. Gretna Green endures as one of the world's most popular wedding venues, and thousands of couples from around the world come to be married 'over the anvil' in Gretna Green. In common law, a "Gretna Green marriage" came to mean, in general, a marriage transacted in a jurisdiction that was not the residence of the parties being married, to avoid restrictions or procedures imposed by the
Charles Ferdinand, Prince of Capua of the Two Sicilies that members of the blood-royal of the kingdom, whatever their age, were required to obtain the consent of the sovereign to marry and that marriages made without this consent should be deemed to be null and void Defying his brother's will, Charles married morganatically Penelope Smyth on 5 April 1836 in Gretna Green. Gretna Green was the first stagecoach stop in Scotland after the border city of Carlisle. It was a popular place for young lovers to marry. There it was sufficed for couples to declare their wish to marry before witnesses. A residence requirement or