To Arrange a Wedding

First call the Vicar to put a date in the diary for the wedding. Do this before you finalise any reception or other arrangement since another couple may have booked the church or the Vicar's time ahead of you, or there may be another event arranged in the church. It is not usually possible to have a wedding the day between Good Friday and Easter Day (what the secular world calls Easter Saturday but is more correctly known as Holy Saturday.)

At the first contact, the Vicar will arrange with you a date to come to the Vicarage to fill in the forms and make formal arrangements apart from the date and time.

Residential Qualification

Qualifications: one of the following must apply -

• One of the partners is resident in the parish.
• At least one of the partners must be a regular worshipper at that church and be on the church's electoral roll, qualified to vote in church elections.
• One of the partners has a legitimate and qualifying link to the parish e.g. was born or baptised there, or has close family resident there.

Baptismal Qualification

At least one of the partners must be Baptised (Christened.) If you are taking Christian vows, integrity demands that you are a believing Christian. The primary step to being a Christian is to be Baptised. If you are not baptised, please see the Vicar about this, not just for a qualification for marriage, but as a step in the growth of your faith in life. You would not want to start your marriage based on a lie, which is what you would be doing by taking vows based on a faith to which you do not subscribe.

Divorcees

These parishes have consented to marry divorcees on the condition that the new partner was not involved in the breakdown of the marriage to the previous spouse. The church must not be seen to be blessing an immoral or scandalous action or set of actions. The law of 2005 on Civil Partnerships pertains, and such a civil partnership must be dissolved in law before a marriage can take place in church, and the issue of scandal will also be relevant.

Banns.

The banns are public announcements of your intention to marry. They are called three Sundays in succession (usually in these parishes) the first three Sundays of the month prior to the wedding. It allows the public to register an objection if there is any legal reason why you may not marry. There are four main reasons.

    a) You would be committing bigamy.

    b) You are too closely related to each other, including step-relationships.

    c) You are getting married under duress.

    d) You are not capable of making the decision to get married.

Banns will also have to be called in the Church of England parish of the other partner. You will be given a certificate by the parish priest after this calling certifying that there were no objections alleged. You will present this to the Vicar at the wedding rehearsal.

At the rehearsal

You will bring the fees and the Banns Certificate. For the first period of the rehearsal the couple alone will be talking in confidence to the Vicar. There are vocational courses for many of life's experiences in family, work or leisure. Very few courses exist for marriage. The nearest may be this period with the Vicar.

The second part of the rehearsal will be when the service is gone through in detail so that the couple and all participants understand their role in the service and when and where to perform it. These will be

a) The Bride's Father (or other supporter) who in the tradition "gives away" the bride.

b) The Best Man and/or the groom's chosen witness.

c) The Chief Bridesmaid and/or the Bride's chosen witness.

d) other bridesmaids.

Public

The service is public. No-one, unless they are likely to be disruptive, may be excluded from this public act of worship in a parish church. The service must is held at a time of day when anyone could conveniently attend. (Special permission would be required for, say, a wedding after 6pm)

Music and Flowers.

Hopefully the couple would begin attending worship and meet with the organist. Flowers can be placed in the church by professional arrangers, but our own church arrangers are very competent and much more reasonably priced.

Confetti.

It may look good at the time and be very jolly to throw. The mess afterwards, up to many months in the case of non-biodegradable  confetti in very unsightly for the churchyards. We ask that it is not thrown within 100 yards of the churchyard gates. Rose or other flower petals are much more acceptable by permission.

Photography.

We ask that photographs are not taken during the service as this is a major distraction for what is one of the most Holy moments in the life of the couple. Videos are only to be taken by contractual arrangement, and by a static video operator.

The photographer may take photographs on entry of the bride, on the egress of the couple, and during the signing of the registers, before and after the service, but at no other time within the service.