Wedding Forum - Interesting ..........Church requirements...

This might be interesting to know, it was a surpise to me and to my family.

I called the registry office yesterday to enquire about giving notice (as advised by the lovely peeps on here) and the lady I spoke to straight away booked me and H2B in for an appointment in 4 weeks time, nice and efficient (apart from I'm not impressed I have to take a day off work to do this, why they don't do this on Saturdays I don't know). Then in her standard questions to me I hear information that was news to me and a got me worried. Now H2B and I are getting married approx 25 miles from where we live as I wanted to marry at the Church my parents got married at and where me and my sister were baptised and I had my first communion.

Anyway, the lady tells me that the Church we're getting married in has to be the Church where I normally worship and if it wasn't then we couldn't get married there, she then told me to start attending mass at that Church before we give notice in 4 weeks time rather than going to where I usually do (which is Westminster Cathedral during the week - which I accept is not my local parish church - but the Priest marrying us knows this and is happy about it, at least I go to mass weekly). I was unaware of this rule and I thought that attending mass at the Church was not necessary as long as I did attend elsewhere.

So I have asked the Priest marrying us about this and he said ........."I, nor the Catholic Church, require that you attend this church in order to be married here. This is a civil law requirement. I do not understand the thinking behind it. But I would advise that You take heed of what they say as the laws surrounding marriage are very strict and must be adhered to. There was a similar caase a few years ago and the civil authorities asked me to sign a form stating that this Church was the couple's 'Usual
place of worship'. The registrar must believe that four weeks is enough to establish this and make it possible for her to issue the licence. I hope this makes sense. Once again, it is not a requirement of me or of the Church, this is a civil law matter which I don't have any say in."

So, just in case anyone was beginning to get a bit annoyed with their Church, that is the reason and it's not them!

I will have to get myself over to the Church for mass now once a week for the next couple of months I think (and show my face at my local Parish church to keep the Priest happy there before he does the dispensation paperwork for us).

Has anyone else come across this?

xxx

lol IN a church not marrying a church thats just silly lol


Our church was cofe tho not catholic so might be different rules

Lol - yeah, I think Catholic churches you still have to give notice at the registry office and then our Priest organises a registrar for the day for you (good job he takes care of that - I have it in writing) but CofE they read the banns so you don't have to go to your local registry office.

xx

We're still in the process of meeting the priest etc a we only moved here recently. Spoke to him last Sunday and he said if we go a few more times so he knows we're serious and knows were practising Catholics then he will start the ball rolling. So we're going to speak with him again in a couple of weeks after going more regularly to his church. He seems nice though don't think it will be a problem. Xx

It's only church of England where you don't have to give notice, as they are ruled differently. With all other churches there is a chance you will have a check done to see if you are a regular attendee. We've been advise to sign in 3 times before we give notice.

Awwww, just spoken to my dad and he said he'll happily come to Church with me. He feels guilty as he's too lazy to go now so this is his kick to start going again (last time he went to church was for my grandmothers funeral in January and then for the couple of weeks after - because his two sisters, my aunties are nuns).

H2B won't be able to come, he will only have one weekend free to come then he's on Olympics shifts.

xxx

mrscookiecrew your church sounds like a CofE one xxx

The only reason we have to sign in is in case the registrar rings and gets a caretaker or somebody that's just there to help out. They may not know who we are, so if we sign in then they can just check the book.

linzi-jo yea its a CofE church. x

CofE rules differ with the priest in charge, all at his discretion other than needing banns to be read at local church (£35) and at the place you marry (inc in cost), Catholics sure sound like they have a lot of rules.

CofE rules do not differ - if you go on the Church of England website you will see the rules are pretty clear. Yes priests at Catholic churches will have differing rules to CofE, but vicars at CofE churches have to follow these rules.

MrsCannon2be I think what Kelly meant was that if you have no ties to the church it is at the vicars discretion as to whether or not they agree to marry you, as if you have no ties to their church they are fully in their right to refuse to marry you there xx

Thank you InDreamland xxxx

Just to add to this - I'm no expert, but here's my understanding based on our experience. As others have said, there are two separate issues here.

1. The church's own requirements
2. The civil/legal/registrar requirements.

For number 1, there are different requirements depending on what sort of church it is:

a) Roman Catholic - I don't know much about this to be honest.
b) Church of England - a set list of criteria which can be found on their website (search for 'your church wedding')

eg you need to live in the parish, or have attended the church for six months, or your parents got married there.

c) Other churches eg Baptist, Methodist etc - no set criteria that I'm aware of. My church (Baptist) isn't big enough for our wedding, so we've asked a friendly Baptist church down the road if we can marry there. We don't have any connections with the church at all, but they're happy to marry us.

2. Civil/legal/registrar requirements. The church you want to marry in must EITHER be within the registration district (NOT parish) that one of you lives in. OR it must be your 'usual and only' place that you worship.

So even if the church is happy to marry you, eg because your parents got married there - you still have to satisfy the registrar's requirements by going there regularly so that you can claim it's your usual place of worship, if it's not in your registration district!

Hope that clarifies things!!

Thank for adding to the advice gwynneth. Hopefully others find it useful/helpful xx