Yes, you can have a humanist wedding in the chapel.
That is the first thing to say, because most couples assume otherwise. The University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel is one of a small number of places in Scotland where Protestant, Catholic, secular and humanist ceremonies all happen under the same roof. I have married a couple there, in Turkish and English, with a ring warming that went round the whole room. Nobody minded. That is rather the point of the place.
The room
The Memorial Chapel was designed by John James Burnet. Ground was broken in 1914, the First World War stopped the work, it resumed in 1923, and it was finished and consecrated in 1929. It is a memorial: to the seven hundred and fifty-five men connected with the university who died in that war, and later to the four hundred and five lost in the second. It is worth knowing that before you stand in it, because it changes how the room feels.
What you get is carved wooden stalls down both sides by Archibald Dawson, ten stained glass windows by Douglas Strachan installed in 1931, and a Henry Willis organ from 1927. On a bright afternoon the Strachan glass throws colour across the stone, and your photographer will not need to do very much. It holds around 320, and the university's wedding arrangements run to about 250 guests.
That size is the one thing to plan around. A wedding of eighty can rattle around in here if you let it. Have your guests seated forward and close together rather than spread down the length of it, work at the front of the chapel, and the room goes from cavernous to intimate without losing any of the grandeur.
What I would ask about first
Eligibility, before anything else. The chapel has traditionally been for graduates, students and staff of the university, and their sons and daughters. More recently couples with no connection to the university have been invited to marry there during certain months of the year. The rules have moved, so ask the university's events team directly and get your answer before you fall in love with the room, because you will fall in love with the room.
After that: ask about music and the organ, and about a piper for the steps. The approach up University Avenue and through the cloisters is a proper arrival and a piper makes the most of it. Ask where the confetti can go, because this is a listed memorial building and the answer will not be "anywhere". And ask about timings around term, since the chapel holds daily services during term-time. It is a working place of worship that also hosts weddings, and the diary reflects that.
One piece of ceremony advice specific to this room: pick something participatory. In a chapel this size a ring warming is close to perfect, because it physically moves through every row and connects the back of the room to what is happening at the front. I have done it here and it works.
The legal bit, handled
A humanist wedding in Scotland is legally binding, and as a Humanist Society Scotland celebrant I look after every legal word of it: the declarations, the schedule, the witnesses. I write every ceremony from scratch, which matters more than usual in a room like this, where the building brings its own history and your ceremony has to be recognisably yours. If your families speak more than one language, I will learn the lines and say them. I'm a humanist wedding celebrant covering Glasgow: Hillhead, Kelvinbridge, Partick, the West End and the city centre. I live ten minutes down the hill, so couples booking me for Glasgow weddings pay no travel fees.
Want to see how a day here actually goes? Read Burak & Duygu's full wedding story: two friends from the same Cyprus classroom, a proposal by self-programmed drone, a Turkish welcome, and dancing in the chapel before anybody had left the building.
More Glasgow venues I know inside out: Òran Mór · Cottiers · Kibble Palace · Glasgow Film Theatre · Sherbrooke Castle Hotel · The Exchange · The Grosvenor · Citation · The Engine Works · House for an Art Lover