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
Coldstream St Pauls Cathedral in London following the journey made by George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle when he marched from Coldstream to London enabling the Restoration of King Charles II. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Coldstream was a popular centre for runaway marriages, much like Gretna Green, as it lay on a major road (now the A697). A monument to Charles Marjoribanks (d. 1833), MP for Berwickshire, whose ancestral home was in nearby Lees, stands at the east end of the town, near the Coldstream Bridge. Alec Douglas-Home (d. 1995), who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom