(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

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's less a "Seal of Approval" and more a contract? Formalising things does make them easier for society. It is easy to give people offence if you don't know the intricate details of their relationships (eg asking Tracy how Fred is when they've just split up with Fred, inviting "Tracy and Fred" to your wedding when Fred is just a FWB and Tracy will be horrified at people assuming they're a *serious couple*, not inviting Fred to your wedding and having Tracy offended that you don't take their relationship seriously just because they're not married etc etc) If you know people are married, then it's easier to make a few ground assumptions about their relationship [Yes, I know you think people shouldn't make assumptions about anyone, ever, but given that I think the world couldn't actually work in this scenario it's better to formulise it so people make mainly-right assumptions, not mainly-wrong ones]

Also, it makes it easier to talk about stuff. You could just say "we have this thing of mutual obligation and trust etc etc" but there's a _lot_ of etc etc - it's easier to say "A standard marriage with a side order of X" than have to explain the whole thing from the bottom up.