Weddings and Time Off from Work: When You’re Entitled to Paid Time Off from Your Employer

Brief Overview

Labor law provides for these situations. A wedding is considered one of the so-called other important personal obstacles to work. The employer must therefore grant the employee time off work to the extent prescribed by law. However, this does not always automatically constitute paid leave. The decisive factors are whose wedding the employee is attending and whether it is their own wedding, a child’s wedding, or a parent’s wedding.

Your Own Wedding: Two Days Off, One Paid

If an employee gets married, they may take up to two days off work, one of which is designated for attending the wedding ceremony. However, time off is only granted for hours during which the employee would otherwise have been working. Therefore, if the wedding ceremony falls on a day for which the employee is not scheduled to work, that day is not counted as a day of time off.

However, compensation for wages or salary is only payable for one day. Furthermore, starting in June 2025, the rule will be clarified: if an employee takes two days of time off work, they are entitled to compensation only for the day on which they attended the wedding ceremony.

In practice, this means that if an employee’s wedding is on a Friday, for example, and they are scheduled to work that day, they may take paid time off specifically for the day of the ceremony. They may use the second day of time off, for example, for preparations or travel, but without wage compensation.

The situation is different if the wedding takes place on a day when the employee is not scheduled to work, such as a Saturday. In this case, the employee does not take time off on the day of the ceremony because no shift is canceled for that day. If the employee takes only one day off in connection with their own wedding—for example, on the Friday before the Saturday ceremony—they are entitled to wage or salary compensation for that day. The rule stating that compensation is due only for the day of the wedding ceremony applies if the employee actually takes two days of time off work.

A Child’s or Parent’s Wedding

The law also provides for the participation of parents and children in wedding ceremonies. If an employee attends their child’s wedding, they are entitled to one day of paid leave. This is typically the day of the ceremony. Conversely, if an employee attends a parent’s wedding, they are also entitled to one day off work, but in this case without pay. The difference between a child’s wedding and a parent’s wedding, therefore, lies not in the length of the leave but in whether the leave is paid. Leave for a child’s wedding is paid; leave for a parent’s wedding is not.

Do these rules also apply to registered partnerships and civil law partnerships?

Current legislation now applies more broadly than just to traditional marriage. For the purposes of the government regulation on personal obstacles to work, the term “spouse” also includes a partner under the Civil Code as well as a registered partner under the Act on Registered Partnerships.

In practice, this means that the same rules apply even in cases where the law refers to a spouse, marriage, or wedding ceremony, but the relevant legal institution is a partnership.

An employer should therefore not distinguish between employees based on whether they enter into a marriage, a partnership, or a registered partnership, if the law treats these situations as equivalent for the purposes of obstacles to work.

How to Request Wedding Leave

A wedding is an event that an employee usually knows about well in advance. Therefore, they should inform their employer in a timely manner and request time off well in advance. The Labor Code generally provides that if an employee knows about an impediment to work in advance, they must request time off from their employer in a timely manner.

The employee is required to provide evidence of the obstacle to work to the employer. However, the Labor Code does not specify a particular method for documenting the wedding, so it depends on the circumstances of the specific case. The employee should provide the employer with the information necessary to assess the entitlement to time off work, particularly the existence and date of the wedding ceremony.

The employer cannot unilaterally require the employee to take vacation time instead of the statutory time off from work. Annual leave and an impediment to work are distinct concepts. If an employee meets the conditions for wedding leave, their absence should be considered an impediment to work, not the use of annual leave.

A wedding is just one of many personal impediments to work

A wedding is not the only life situation in which an employee may need time off. The government regulation also covers other important personal obstacles to work, such as a doctor’s appointment, accompanying a family member to a medical facility, the birth of a child, a death in the family, the funeral of a coworker, moving, or looking for a new job.

For each type of obstacle, the duration of the leave and whether wage compensation is due vary. For example, in the case of a doctor’s visit, it is assessed whether the examination could not have taken place outside of working hours and whether it was at the nearest appropriate medical facility. In the case of a funeral, the amount of leave depends on the employee’s relationship to the deceased. When looking for a new job, it also depends on the reason for the termination of employment.

It is therefore important for both employees and employers not to rely on the general assumption that “there is always paid leave for family matters.” Labor law distinguishes between individual situations quite precisely.

Summary

For their own wedding, an employee may take up to two days of leave, one of which is for attending the wedding ceremony. Wage or salary compensation is payable for a maximum of one day. If an employee takes both days of time off, they are entitled to compensation only for the day they attend the wedding ceremony. However, if the employee takes only one day of leave—for example, because the ceremony falls on a day when no shift is scheduled—the employee is entitled to compensation for that single day of leave. For a child’s wedding, an employee is entitled to one day of paid leave, and for a parent’s wedding, to one day of unpaid leave.

It is advisable to request this time off well in advance and to expect that the employer may ask for reasonable proof of the ceremony’s date. Conversely, the employer should not automatically substitute wedding leave with vacation time if the employee meets the conditions for a statutory impediment to work.

The wedding season is thus not only a romantic matter but also a labor law issue. Properly arranging time off will help prevent unnecessary disputes and allow the employee to focus on a day that should, above all, be a joyful life event.