After some speculation last week, it’s official – Elton John and David Furnish will marry this weekend.

With England now allowing same-sex couples to marry, Elton John and David Furnish have planned to marry on the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership on December 21.

The couple – who have been together for 21 years – are expected to marry in an intimate affair, with close friends and family involved.

The couple’s two sons, Zachary and Elijah, are to perform as ring bearers in the ceremony.

“We’ll do it very quietly. But we will do it and it will be a joyous occasion and we will have our children [there],” John said in an interview with Matt Lauer in March 2014. “For this legislation to come through is joyous and we should celebrate it. We shouldn’t just say, ‘Oh, well, we have a civil partnership, we’re not going to bother to get married’. We will get married.”

It isn’t clear yet where the couple will marry, but it will be relatively low-key, contrasting their civil partnership ceremony which included 650 guests.

“I think what we’ll do is go to a register office in England…and take the boys with us, and a couple of witnesses.”

However, some news outlets expect for the couple to marry at their Berkshire estate.

Elton John has previously taken issue with the Church of England for not allowing gay priests to marry.

The couple had originally intended to marry in May of this year, but were forced to postpone their wedding after they realised that civil partnerships could not yet be converted to marriages.

The final regulations governing the conversion of civil partnerships came into effect in England and Wales on December 10, after the government’s delay in June.

Watch Elton talk on Sky News about his plans to marry: