Any advise on gay marriage? Help please.

Sammy_Girl

If your girlfriend wants a religious service, then you should be able to find a priest who will carry out a blessing, but the actual marraige would be a civil partnership. But their rules are quite strict in that the ceremony has no religious connotations, readings, hymns etc. You could always have the civil bit done on a Friday and the blessing with reception etc on the Saturday?

Horace

Raphael - check your PM box as I have sent you some details of possible celebrants. I haven't used them myself so cannot comment on their suitability but I found them on the Pink Weddings website.

MsChazzer

There's some useful links for blessings on this page, I don't think they are just for Scotland: http://www.civilpartners.org/Equality/Web.nsf/webpages/1924A5B31B7F7676802570C9006E4185?OpenDocument

x_raphael_xx

Thank you all for your useful info, I will check links and PMs with the missus when she gets back from her course.

x_raphael_xx

A small update...
I have found out (thanks to all your links) that we cannot get married. Instead we can have a civil ceremony to show out commitment to each other which will give us the same rights as married couples.
We can't have a wedding in a church, as it's a religious ceremony, instead we can have a blessing conducted. So we have decided to have a blessing in a church first, then off to a hotel for the civil ceremony and the reception.

The difficult thing is finding a church that is happy to do the blessing, I've checked all your links and googled but can't find anything useful.

Any help there at all? I'm not even sure what type of church would be more open-minded?

Edit: Foreversomeday, sorry I didn't answer your question. Neither me or the missus attend church regularly. But we are happy to attend services leading up to the 'wedding' as I know most churches ask for this.

Horace

x_raphael_xx wrote: »

A small update...
I have found out (thanks to all your links) that we cannot get married. Instead we can have a civil ceremony to show out commitment to each other which will give us the same rights as married couples.
We can't have a wedding in a church, as it's a religious ceremony, instead we can have a blessing conducted. So we have decided to have a blessing in a church first, then off to a hotel for the civil ceremony and the reception.

The difficult thing is finding a church that is happy to do the blessing, I've checked all your links and googled but can't find anything useful.

Any help there at all? I'm not even sure what type of church would be more open-minded?

I think that it will be a case of having a chat with the vicar to see whether or not he would be willing to conduct a blessing. I did send some details to you in a PM about a Reverend who would do blessings and I think she came from the Independent Free Christian Church. If you cannot find a church that is willing to undertake a blessing then there is no harm in holding a blessing after the civil ceremony and before the reception without the need to attend a church building.

HTH and good luck with your partnership.

x_raphael_xx

Horace wrote: »

I did send some details to you in a PM about a Reverend who would do blessings

Woops sorry missed your PM will check it out. Sorry

Thanks again

~evanesco~

Definately keep ringing around. My friends had their civil partnership blessed in their local church, so there are vicars willing to bless civil partnerships, it's just a case of finding them.

~S~_2

Hi (and congratulations!),

I was wondering had you or would you conisder getting married abroad? My uncles have a bit of a warped view (in my opinion). They're very religious and both feel that although all couples (homosexual or heterosexual) deserve the same rights in law, a marriage should only be between a man and a woman. So they really liked the way things are here, that a civil partnership is not a marriage. However, in Spain, where they live, there isn't that distinction. At least not to the same extent. I know this because my uncles came here for their civil partnership, rather than having a wedding in Spain.

Now I don't know what your take on the whole thing is, but I just thought it might be worth considering something along the lines of getting married in Spain, as I would imagine, going by what my uncles have said, that over there they may be more open about you having the wedding you want.

Hope someone finds that little rant a bit useful!

~S~

~S~_2

Hi (and congratulations!),

I was wondering had you or would you conisder getting married abroad? My uncles have a bit of a warped view (in my opinion). They're very religious and both feel that although all couples (homosexual or heterosexual) deserve the same rights in law, a marriage should only be between a man and a woman. So they really liked the way things are here, that a civil partnership is not a marriage. However, in Spain, where they live, there isn't that distinction. At least not to the same extent. I know this because my uncles came here for their civil partnership, rather than having a wedding in Spain.

Now I don't know what your take on the whole thing is, but I just thought it might be worth considering something along the lines of getting married in Spain, as I would imagine, going by what my uncles have said, that over there they may be more open about you having the wedding you want.

Hope someone finds that little rant a bit useful!

~S~