A registry office may sound a humdrum place for a documentary series to focus its cameras, but it's actually the backdrop to some of the most moving events in our lives - a place to celebrate birth, honour a marriage, testify a death. Is there a more symbolic place in our society for the big events by which we mark our lives?
'Births, Deaths and Marriages' brings this home. In Week 1 of this two-parter, we see everything from the registry of a royal birth, to the controlled chaos of a young couple trying desperately to enlist the services of some accidental witnesses to their marriage. And there's one pair, whose journey from celebration to tragedy in a single fortnight will leave no dry eye in the house.
As Registrar Tommy Hanover describes: “You see almost every kind of emotion in this building, when you are registering but the one thing that tends to unite them is love. That’s palpable in almost every registration that you do.”
'Births, Deaths and Marriages' Part 1 is on ITV tonight at 9pm. Watch our clips below...