Church Question

urbancookie1

Can anyone enlighten me on this, Years ago you could only really get married in the bride or grooms parish. but it seams that nowadays you can get married in any church in any area that you want to is that right.

Speckled_Egg

No, it's not that simple!

It's possible to get married in a church in another parish. It's what we're doing but we've had to jump through hoops to get there! If you want an easy life, get married in your own parish. This gives you a bit more info:-

https://www.cofe.anglican.org/lifeevents/weddings

LittleVoice

Rule was that, in the Church of England, it was the parish church of the bride or bridegroom or in a church where at least one of them was on the church's electoral role.

More recently, priests have been given more discretion, so that they can decide they will conduct marriage services where there is some sort of connection with the church - such as being baptised there or regularly attending when staying with family.

In fact, the parish priest can conduct a wedding for anyone who meets legal requirements regarding age, not currently being married and so on. There has been some talk recently of making this more explicit.

VickyA_2

If you want to get married in any church then you need a special licence. However, there are ways around this........................ Make sure you speak to the vicar as they'll know the best loophole for you.

For example, DH and I were living together in a place that was 70 miles from my parents. Having grown up in the village where my parents still lived, I wanted to get married in that marriage church. Officially we should have had a special licence to marry there as neither of us were resident in the parish, practically the vicar "made up" the fact that I still lived there and so we only had one form to fill in confirming my residency! :whistle:

From what the vicar said, we're not the first and we DEFINITELY won't be the last!

Krystaltips

I may of fibbed about my current address in order to get my daughter christened in the same church I was...

As far as getting married in church, we're getting married in one a five minute walk from home so didn't have to jump through any hoops to get there!

Mrs.Mac.2b

We are not getting married in our parish, I had a lovely chat with the vicar over the phone and he said we could get a special licence or something but thats too long winded so as long as we start attending the church at least once a month for 6 months we can sign on the electorial role there (the church one) and have our wedding there.

paddingtondoo

When I got married the first time I told a small porky and said I lived at my mum's who was in the parish of the church I wanted. OH at the time just had to have the banns read in his own parish.

Speckled_Egg

Mrs.Mac.2b

Not sure if you know this, but make sure you get your banns read in both parishes. We only found this out the other week. The marrying church needs to see the banns certificate of the parish you reside in before they can legally marry you.

Speckled Egg
x

EricaB

we got round it by putting my address down as my mums and also being on the electoral role - the vicar there also told us about getting banns read in both parishes

ok it does help when you have lived in the parish in the past and your mum is a church warden

Horace

The law will be changing later this year so that people can marry in churches that are not within their parish. I remember seeing it either on an email with regard to my wedding planning course or on the BBC News website.

bigmomma051204

Horace wrote: »

The law will be changing later this year so that people can marry in churches that are not within their parish. I remember seeing it either on an email with regard to my wedding planning course or on the BBC News website.

lol - the smaller parish churches probably realise how much cash they are missing out on without many weddings!!!! Hopefully by the time I actually get things sorted the rules may have changed and i will have all of UK churches to choose from!!

Oh hey Horace - forgot to ask.....how you doing this wedding planning course then?? Sounds like fun (and hard work of course) - is it like an OU one or something????