Church Wedding Ceremony - Methodist or Baptist?
by louley | 11 September, 2007 - 11:05
Hello,
Myself and my partner would like to get married in September 2008. Neither of us follow a particular religion (we were christened as babies) but would like to have a church wedding ceremony.
The Church which is most beautiful to me is just outside our parish and I've heard they are quite strict about that, so I don't think we would be able to marry there, but there are two churches very close to us, however, one is Baptist and the other is Methodist. I am sorry if I sound ignorant, I do not mean to be, but can we marry in either of these?
Also,could you please give my a helping hand on how and who to approach about booking the church for the wedding, I would hate to offend anyone by doing/saying something wrong.
Thanks very much
Louley
Comments
Hi Louley
It is complicated getting married outside the area where you live just at the moment. It's the most common question asked on this site and hopefully that rule will change at some time in the future.
Your local Church of England minister has a duty to marry parishioners, and - as long as you haven't been married before - we have to agree to either conduct the service ourselves or provide another minister. Even if you've been divorced it's worth having the discussion and different ministers have varying thoughts about this, but they'll let you know.
Obviously I can't answer for the Baptist or Methodist church, but my guess is that they will welcome you too. We're all in the business of sharing God's love with our communities.
In any case the thing to do is to ring the minister (you can usually get the number off the church notice board)and make arrangements to meet. Sometimes they have a set time in the week to do this.
Wherever you get married I do hope you have a lovely day.
Warm regards
Jan x