Pe­ter Christo­pher

Cou­ples will once again have the op­tion to have a Red House wed­ding.

At Thurs­day's Post Cab­i­net Press brief­ing, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young con­firmed that the prac­tice of go­ing to the red house to for­malise a mar­riage would re­sume.

"Cab­i­net took a de­ci­sion to­day that we should make all of the nec­es­sary plans and moves to al­low mar­riages to take place at the Red House once again. But yes so the cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go has to­day tak­en the de­ci­sion that we are go­ing to al­low mar­riages and the reg­is­tra­tion of mar­riages once again at the Red House in Port of Spain, " said Min­is­ter Young.

The prac­tice of go­ing to the Red House to of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­ter mar­i­tal unions, with­out an ac­com­pa­ny­ing re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ny and fea­tur­ing min­i­mal wit­ness­es, had been com­mon pri­or to the build­ing's clo­sure for restora­tion work in 2011.

Since then, cou­ples seek­ing to get mar­ried in this man­ner then had to go Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, where these civ­il unions would be fa­cil­i­tat­ed.

Min­is­ter Young said the de­ci­sion was in keep­ing with the gov­ern­ment's plan for his­tor­i­cal build­ings, re­veal­ing that they had al­so dis­cussed plans for oth­er his­tor­i­cal build­ings such as Stollmey­er's Cas­tle, Mille­fleur, White­hall and Pres­i­dent's House. Min­is­ter Young said they were await­ing word from the AG's of­fice con­cern­ing the next step for these build­ings.

"Mak­ing these the types of at­trac­tions that we be­lieve that they should be and part of a whole tourism dri­ve and thrust. We are cur­rent­ly hav­ing dis­cus­sions with the her­itage trust for his­tor­i­cal build­ings of Trinidad and To­ba­go to see the type of re­la­tion­ship that can be worked out with them, " he said, adding that they would be hop­ing to cre­ate a strat­e­gy for the her­itage trust to seek pos­si­ble in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est and fund­ing for the build­ings to aid with their up­keep.