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
Marriage in Scotland and nineteenth centuries, marriage laws in Scotland encouraged the practice of couples wishing to marry eloping from England to Scotland. With transport less developed, many of these marriages were at Gretna Green, the first Scottish settlement on the main West Coast route from England; hence the term "Gretna Green marriage" for marriages transacted in a jurisdiction that was not the residence of the parties being married, to avoid restrictions or procedures imposed by the parties' home jurisdictions. Other Scottish Border villages used for these marriages were Coldstream Bridge, Lamberton Toll (in Lamberton, Berwickshire), Mordington and Paxton Toll. Portpatrick in Wigtownshire