family church wont marry me, it only serves students

Tiddlywinks

You could stamp your feet a bit and squeam and squeam until you're sick... that might work!

Or you could accept that the church administration has moved to the uni - a fact you hadn't even realised despite your close ties with it.

Prothet_of_Doom

Find another church. My parents were regulars at a church in another parish, and my dad was a church warden, and also did the church accounts.
Would the vicar, marry me and my fianc!e, who were regulars in a church some 100 miles away, and wanted to get married back in our home town ? Would he hell! Would the bishop intervene, after my dad wrote him a plea from the heart ? Would he Hell !!!
Do my parents attend that particular church or indeed that particular denomination ? Nah.

duchy

I don't think anyone (including the OP)is saying the OP has a right to marry there . It's not like she's gone all Bridezilla over it.

Most uni chaplins are quite modern thinking and approachable so worth talking to about the possibility of an exception been made based on the family connection -especially if the OP is planning on taking a course there. The option of a blessing instead if the uni's function facilities are used is another path to explore.

It won't hurt to ask -nicely- Yes the church have no obligation but policy is just that and exceptions can be made sometimes. Nothing to lose in making a personal approach and at least the OP will then know they have tried their best whatever the outcome.

Errata

It seems to me the way forward for the OP is to talk to her priest about not wanting to be married by him in the church where she goes to mass and confession

Homeownertobe

You only have one option if you wish to marry in that church - enrol at the university. Nothing else will work.

duchy

But before doing so confirm a part-time course is enough !!

seven-day-weekend

Maybe a good way forward would be to see if you could have a Service of Blessing in that church.

Just get married beforehand, somewhere else.

Lots of people have to do this, who can't get married in their chosen church, for whatever reason.

TBagpuss

OP, I think it would definitely be worth your while to try to speak personally to the chaplain. They may be willing to discuss ways in which you could achieve your wish, and also, if you speak to them directly you can also ask them whether enrolling for a part time court would qualify you, and whether, if you cannot be married there, they would be willing to perform a blessing for you.

You can also double check whether the fact that they are able to perform marriages by 'kind permission of the diocese of Salford' means tha you would also need to get the Bishop's approval if the chaplain turns out to be willing to carry out the ceremony for you.

If you cannot find a way forward, perhaps you and your fiance could arrange o attend a service at the chaplaincy the Sunday before your wedding, or for the first mass afterwards, so that you can feel that you have involved it, and your family links, in the wedding, even if the ceremony cannot take place there.

bazzyb

avogadro wrote: »

Non-religious people will understandably see the church as just a building, but it is important to her to get married in this particular church because it has significance for her and her family.

Rubbish. If anything, non-religious people would be more supportive of her getting married married there because they think it is a nice tradition for her to do so at the same place as her parents. Religious people would think it was far more important to marry at the church she actually attends and has connections with.

If the church was genuinely significant to the family, they would have been aware long ago that it no longer functioned as a 'normal' church.

summerspring

It looks like a beautiful church, OP, I hope you can get married there. The best way to go about that does seem to be for you or your fiance to enrol on one of their courses!