To think it's really cheeky to remove Christmas flowers from the altar for your wedding

[user1485342611]

A good friend of mine is on the flower team for our local church. They did the altar up beautifully for Christmas. A wedding had been booked in the church for a few days after Christmas and they wanted to remove all the flowers and replace with their own arrangements. It was explained to the B&G that once the Church was decorated for Christmas it had to stay that way until 12th night.

The couple kicked up an almighty fuss and said there was no way they wanted red and white flowers on the altar during their wedding. Then, with no permission, they went into the church, removed all the Christmas arrangements from the altar and left them at the side of the Church. They then replaced them with their own flowers, and brought the flowers away with them after the wedding, leaving the altar (and the steps outside which were also decorated for Christmas) bare.

They told no one what they had done and when it was discovered my friend and her team (all voluntary workers) who had spent hours getting the Church ready for Christmas, then had to give up more of their time restoring the altar to the way it was. They were absolutely furious.

AIBU to think this was unbelievably cheeky and to also not understand why you would get married at Christmas time and then object to the Church being decorated in a Christmassy fashion?

' I believe RC churches operate a different system.'

Not sure how the sacrament of matrimony works in the UK Catholic churches as I had only a civil wedding, but in the US at least one of you needs to be a confirmed Catholic, you have to inform a priest of your intentions to marry at least 4 months in advance and both of you have to attend pre-Cana classes before you can marry in the Catholic church, you must also prove you are able to marry in the Catholic church. It gets rid of people just looking for a pretty backdrop. As far as I know it's donations for a wedding. My daughter's Requiem Mass was in the Catholic church, as she was a Catholic child, and no fee was charged, but we did give a donation (the priest also came in the funeral car to the cemetery, also a Catholic cemetery, to pray at the burial site).

Iwant, £400 seems excessive to me (my brother paid £700) for what is essentially a couple of hours use of the church, but it's a free market so I guess churches can charge what they want. But in doing so, they do open themselves up to pesky capitalist demands. We are increasingly a secular society - the church has some choices to make on where it wants to go with that. Does it restrict its use to true believers or does it take business where it can find it and adapt?

I do agree though that the b&g ought to have returned the church as they found it. I hope they did just get caught up in the moment and it was an oversight rather than deliberate rudeness.

it's a free market so I guess churches can charge what they want

It categorically is not. The fees are set centrally by the Church of England and cover the administrative costs of registering the marriage, publishing the banns, the cost of the priest's time, etc - that's currently £441 of your £700, slightly more if you're marrying outside of your home parish. The church might then in addition charge for the cost of heating, the organist, the choir, bells, etc. Nobody makes any profit from this.

Surely the CofE as a whole are profiting from it? Or charging what it needs to sustain itself, like any other business? If not, then apologies. I would have thought that if it reflects actual cost then register office fees would be the same but my impression is that they are cheaper - the end result bring the same, which is a legally binding marriage.

I know religious people see it differently, but if the church is selling weddings to non believers then it kind of has to accept that it comes with them taking a non religious view of things.

I still don't understand why some people think that if you pay for something then you get to demand anything you want, despite what the providers of the service say. Again, my reception venue - which cost a lot more than the church - had restrictions on decoration types, approved caterers, parts of the building people could take drinks into. We agreed to those rules, and the fact we'd paid to hire the space didn't mean we could ignore them.

I happen to think a church is different from a commercial venue anyway - but even if it weren't, paying money, even a lot of money, doesn't mean there are no restrictions on use. If you're told you can't move the flowers then you can't move the flowers - you've hired the building, not bought it.

I wanna sums up the problem. B&G (and to many) who themselves as "customers" renting a space and the church "selling" weddings.

Where as the church instead believes it is offering a sacrament - and needs to cover its costs. Its not a business deal to them.

I doubt there is much if any profit being made - churches will usually only have one wedding per day (week even). Register office is one every hour all day, and the economics are very different.

Iwant, £400 seems excessive to me (my brother paid £700) for what is essentially a couple of hours use of the church, but it's a free market so I guess churches can charge what they want.

I've chosen Warwickshire county council essentially at random (they vary a bit by place), but you can see the fees here: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/legalformalitiesandfees

If you go to the registry office it's in the region of £200-£300, depending on day of the week, if you want them to come to your venue (which obviously you'll have to separately pay for) then it's £400-£500. You can have it cheaper, but that means having no ceremony at all. You also have to pay to give notice, which is £70 (included in the CofE fees).

You might think that weddings should be free because everyone should just be nice about it, but that's not actually how it works.

maclinks, there was no agreement that the b&g could remove the flowers in the first place. They just did it.

And even if you do look at it like any other venue, which it is not, it's a church, all venues also have rules and if you don't abide by them they reserve the right to not honour your booking. I'd image with a secular venue you would also incur fees for the registrar to come out and perform the ceremony and register it.

Do synagogues, mosques and temples offer to marry people who are clearly not religious and haven't set foot in a place of worship for years?

And would they allow their religious practices to be discarded because they don't match a 'theme'?

My understanding from MIL’s church (where she does flowers) is that couplea getting married over Christmas often contribute to the xmas flowers - and I’ve known people do that for christenings, anniversaries of deaths too. You chip in with money, help, talent... and you are grateful they let you share their church for your special occasion. If you’re not a regular part of the congregation you should have the manners to find out what the protocol is

' I would have thought that if it reflects actual cost then register office fees would be the same but my impression is that they are cheaper'

Registry offices also charge more by venue, by the time and day of the week you marry. If you want to marry in the registry house in the High Street in Edinburgh, for example, it costs more than doing so at the one in Leith (we looked into this), it's cheaper to marry during the week than on a Saturday or a bank holiday weekend. If you chose to be married in a licensed venue to a registry officer there will be cost attached to that officer's travelling out there and performing it.

Do synagogues, mosques and temples offer to marry people who are clearly not religious and haven't set foot in a place of worship for years

It depends on the individual one - just as it does for all churches except the CofE (a worrying number of posters on this thread seem to not know that you can have a church that isn't CofE!) which has a statutory requirement to marry people if they fit certain criteria around residence, etc. I know some pretty damn non-practising Jews who have got married in their parents' synagogue, so it isn't unknown for other religions, either.

I've conducted weddings in hotels. One, a few years ago, was in December and there were festive decorations in all areas of the hotel, inside and out.

Would those who think it's perfectly acceptable for this bride and groom to go into a church and trash the festive decorations think it would be fine for them to do the same in a hotel?

Do synagogues, mosques and temples offer to marry people who are clearly not religious and haven't set foot in a place of worship for years

I know that interfaith marriages aren't possible in a Jewish synagogue. Both parties have to be Jewish by conversion or by heritage.

Nobody thinks it was okay for b&g to trash the church flowers. The bone of contention is whether the church ought to have accommodated b&g in wanting to change the decorations for their wedding.
I believe everyone agrees that b&g were wrong to not leave the church as they found it.

I love how now it's becoming people deciding what price they think is acceptable for a religious wedding. Somehow it misses the point that a religious wedding is not some business transaction where people can say 'but i paid X...'
Get over it. We looked at some receptuon venues and they refused to have a recpetion only wedding during summer season because they can make more money filling saturdays for whole day affairs. They also had mininum head counts too (to maximise rolling it in). They also had rules about corkage, rules about no outside catering other than the wedding cake, one banned confetti etc. If we'd shelled out the £17,000 they wanted as a minimum then we's still have to follow their rules.
Not being funny, but people going on about how the church had rules probably wouldn't be arsey with a wedding planner at 5* country house but it's fine to be a PITA to churches because they should be grateful you want their building in your photographs.

@IWannaSeeHowItEnds A number of posters have said that they think the couple should be able to do what they want because they have "paid for the use of the church". So, if we set aside the very obvious facts that it was a donation, that a church wedding is a service of worship and that it is much more than a simple "let" of premises - would those posters think it acceptable to behave in that way in a hotel or other very obviously commercial venue?

The church is being criticised as not being accommodating. The church, when the wedding date was first confirmed, advised the bride and groom that they should contact the flower team by a certain date to discuss floral arrangements. The bride and groom did not do this.

Not being funny, but people going on about how the church had rules probably wouldn't be arsey with a wedding planner at 5 country house but it's fine to be a PITA to churches because they should be grateful you want their building in your photographs.*

This, and not only should the church be grateful, but if they do anything less than smile and forgive CFs who take the piss, then they are criticised for being not very Christian!

As I've said before there's a difference between being humble and being a doormat. Those who think the church should be a doormat are generally those CFs who take the huff when the church sets reasonable boundaries and limits.

I think both sides are at fault here. While ultimately the bride and groom did the wrong thing - and so the conversation ends there - the tone of the church’s defence is... exclusive. There is a sense that church is only a place for dyed in the wool, devout Christians. And that’s not my understanding of the role of the church in terms of outreach and community involvement. My local vicar knows I don’t believe and invites me to all the big event services anyway. He says it doesn’t matter what I believe in - he believes in me... If only weekly church attendees can marry in church, rather than anyone of faith, if only regular church attendees can attend church events, rather than the community at large... well, I can understand why congregations are dwindling.

The couple didn’t want the aesthetic the volunteers had worked so hard to create. I can see this is frustrating for the volunteers. But moving them could have been an option. An inconvenient one, maybe. But you could have asked for help from the wedding party. Even an extra donation.

They shouldn’t have just moved them. They definitely should have put them back.

But they don’t deserve vilifying for wanting particular flowers at their wedding. It feels mean.

I think b&g probably assumed that they would not be refused their own flower decorations and misunderstood, thinking that contacting the flower team was a logistical thing or a suggestion if they needed help wrt decorations. I've never heard of a wedding venue not allowing people their own decorations so it probably didn't occur to them that this was a possibility. I think a hotel (or other venue) would allow it, so this is unlikely to crop up there, since hotels are businesses and geared towards meeting customer needs. But to answer your question, if you pay for use of a venue imo you should be able to use your own flowers, but not damage the venue's own property.

Honestly, I think the church ought to have allowed a temporary change of decoration and b&g ought to have left the church as they found it.

I am not at all religious but find their action incredibly rude. If they wanted to get married at Christmas in that particular church then should adhere to the "rules" of that particular church. I would charge the b&good for the reinstatement of the removed flowers if only to buy the volunteers redoing them a treat to say thank you. Self centred and disrespectful

I think both sides are at fault here. While ultimately the bride and groom did the wrong thing - and so the conversation ends there - the tone of the church’s defence is... exclusive. There is a sense that church is only a place for dyed in the wool, devout Christians.

But what they were asked to do - leave the flowers alone - wasn't a mark of devotion, just of respect. Respect primarily not even for the liturgy of the church (for which flowers are nice but unnecessary) but for the church as a community, and the hard work that goes into it, and the many, many people who (especially across Christmas) will be coming into the church for many different reasons. It's the opposite of exclusive, it was about keeping something intact for everyone to enjoy, while the B&G wanted to act like it was their own personal space that didn't exist outside the hour it took them to get married.

I've never heard of a wedding venue not allowing people their own decorations so it probably didn't occur to them that this was a possibility. I think a hotel (or other venue) would allow it, so this is unlikely to crop up there, since hotels are businesses and geared towards meeting customer needs.

Again, my reception venue - which is a museum - had lots of restrictions on decorations. So do lots of other special/listed/unique buildings - including some hotels. We knew the rules and we stuck to them, because otherwise we'd have been complete pricks, even though we had paid to hire the museum.

Yanbu. Very horrible bride and groom. When we got married if you got married in december you were expected to pay abit to the xmas flowers, cant believe the bride and groom didnt put flowers back. Says more about them than the church!!!