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 was used by couples from Ireland, because of the daily packet boat service to Donaghadee. Gretna's famous runaway marriages began in 1753 with the passing of "Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act" in England. The Act required consent to the marriage from the parents if a party to a marriage was not at least 21 years old. However, in Scotland it was possible for boys to get married at 14 years and girls at 12 years without parental consent. Some "Gretna" marriages were of (sometimes abducted) heiresses; e.g., the second marriage in 1826 of Edward Gibbon Wakefield to the young heiress Ellen