(no subject)

[lavendersparkle]

In my perusing of the wedding planning part of the internet I'm getting increasingly irritable with non-religious brides who want to have an Anglican wedding so that they can get married in a pretty church but then bitch about unfair it is that the church:
a) won't let them get married in a different church to their parish church just because it's prettier and/or was in a film.
b) strongly encourages them to come to church a whole three times to hear the Banns read.
c) makes them meet with the vicar more than once and dares to try to explain Christian ideas of marriage during those meetings.
d) won't allow them to do things which it deems inappropriate during the service.
e) makes them use the liturgy of the Church of England.

The Church of England is a religious body, not a wedding and pretty building preservation service. Would these people wander into a Mosque because it was pretty and then get all uppity about how the imam wouldn't let them wear a strapless dress for the ceremony?

Comments

[cesy.livejournal.com]

And they're all so sure that the vicar is just being mean and nasty when he points out that he can't legally marry them in a church that isn't their parish church, however many years they spent there growing up, and regardless of the fact that their parents still live there.

In many ways, it would be better if church ceremonies were not legal weddings, so it worked like other religions do already, where you have a registry office ceremony for the legal bit, and a religious ceremony for actually getting married in sight of God. Then the distinction between "reducing taxes" and "making religious vows" would be much clearer, and they could do whatever they liked with their pretty wedding ideas.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

Well, a vicar probably would have the discretion to be able to marry people in his church who aren't parishioners but have a strong conection to the church. He'd have to do it by special licence, but that's not hard to do if you have a reasonable excuse. My youngest brother is planning to marry in my parents' church and I doubt there'd be any problems obtaining a special licence, particularly as my mother is on the PCC and the deanery synod. Anyway, the Chrch of England is planning to change the rules soon so that you can get married in your parents church or the church you grew up in without a special licence.

I agree that I think it would better if we had the Dutch system of everyone civilly registering their marriage and then doing whatever kind of celebration they want.

[lecabinet.livejournal.com]

I read something about the Church trying to get people marrying in Churches again by loosening the rules, you can [will be able to?] get married if your parents go to the churc or if your grandparents got married there, which seems fairly tenuous to me but whatever floats your boat I suppose!

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

Yay to that. I agree with your last sentence entirely. But I am an odd C of E anarchist because I'd only do the religious bit and would skip the civil altogether. Boo to Constantine.