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 know nothing about flower arranging but I suspect the phrase "just put them back as you found them" would cause people who do to gnash their teeth in frustration.

I got married in a CofE church a couple of years ago and they charged us about £600. It was most certainly not voluntary! Even the added "extras" were apparently compulsory costs... They made a couple of hundred extra in the collect too. I think if you're getting the best part of a grand for 45 minutes of use, you should probably lighten up about the flowers...

I appreciate your church may not have the same charging arrangements though!

There is a fine line between being humble and being a doormat!

Agree - God didm't put anyone on earth to be a doormat.

And there is a fine, but definite, line between being welcoming and inclusive and letting people make use you.

Unless they got the church for free they can decorate it how they wanted.

As OP points out above, it is a church, not a function room in a pub.

A consecrated church is not ‘a backdrop to a wedding’ any more than is a Synagogue or Mosque or indeed the Vatican. They are the houses of each communities God. They are sacred places and the communities that support and maintain them deserve to be respected. If you don’t want God or religion and prettiness is more important then choose one of the very lovely commercial wedding venues such as country houses, castles or more unusual venues.
They do tend to be more expensive than churches though. If you want church then you have to be prepared to follow the rules and customs of that particular denomination. The couple knew the deal about flowers. They were unkind, dismissive of the flower arrangers feelings and disrespectful of the boundaries set by the church.
Being Christian, I’m sure the flower arrangers will forgive them in due course.
Irrelevant but Christmas weddings in beautiful churches look spectacular. Our best man married on 30th December with the bride wrapped up in white (faux) fur, an aisle of twinkling Christmas trees and garlands draped above the altar.

If the bride and groom only find out the week before

The flowers were not part of religion, they were there for decoration

They are not there PURELY for decoration - they have religious significance - that is why there are particular colours associated with different periods of the church year.

If they were just for decoration, then it wouldn't matter what they did with them, would it? But it does.

I think it would be a real shame if a couple were turned away from a church wedding over a matter of flowers, which are beautiful and traditional decorations but not really the main point of either a wedding or Christmas. The B&G were in the wrong to mess around with the decorations without asking but it's a shame a compromise could not have been worked out.

As OP points out above, it is a church, not a function room in a pub.

Absolutely - but also, this also isn't how hiring a function room in a pub works either. When you hire a room you don't get to do whatever you like to it without checking with the owner just because you've hired it. If they said you can't stick pins in the walls, or use decorations with glitter, or tie things round a delicate fireplace (all things our reception venue stipulated) then they're 'take it or leave it' requirements - hiring out a venue gives you the right to use it as per the hire agreement, it doesn't make you temporary king of the room!

Good point, Margaret!

Serious question - what religious significance do the flowers have to Christmas?

If a B&G do not regularly attend church and are not involved in the church community what else is their church wedding but a performance?

I think it would be a real shame if a couple were turned away from a church wedding over a matter of flowers

They weren't there for the sacrament, it seems. They cared more about the decoration.

If we are talking about a Church of England church then the fee paid is a required legal fee. No separate registrar involved - the presiding priest registers the marriage.

honey The feast of Christmas follows Advent, which is a sombre, austere season of preparation for Christ's arrival. It's similar in solemnity to Lent, and similarly the church will have very minimal decoration with purple used for altar cloths, priests' robes etc.

In comparison, Christmas is a joyful feast. The purple is replaced with white (as at Easter) and the church decoration, including flowers, becomes more lavish as a celebration of Christ's birth.

Incidentally, on the topic of respecting the life and beliefs of the church - many churches will not conduct weddings during Lent and Advent but in those which do it is usually made very clear that the church decoration will be very sparse and cannot be altered.

Christmas church flowers are traditionally red and white - red signifying the blood of Christ and white, innocence and purity. The greenery among them is symbolic of eternal life.

Guessing you aren't C of E seeingdistance? Because marrying people who don't believe is something that clergy in the established church sign up to.

B and G obviously being dicks though. And I'm laughing at the stupidity of the comments about this showing the church needs to be more inclusive. No, it shows that people need to stick to the conditions they agree to abide by. I'm not C of E fwiw, so no skin in this game.

As a Christian and churchgoer, I'm kind of on the fence about this one.
The couple weren't unreasonable to want their own flowers, but wrong to move the church flowers when they'd been asked not to. I know the (mostly elderly) ladies in our church who do the flowers give up a lot of time to do it, and it's not fair to add to their work. On the other hand it's easy for a church to get quite insular, and forget they are there to serve the community.
As an aside, in our church the flowers are collected after the service and given to the sick / lonely / bereaved / housebound in the congregation / community.

*Enidyou seem to be implying that because they 'volunteer' to do the flowers it doesn't matter what people do or how much inconvenience they cause the volunteers. Is that what you're saying?

You also seem to be saying that it's disrespectful to object to non church goers opting to have their wedding in a church and then insisting on having everything their own way regardless of how much it discommodes regular church goers and those who look after the church*

....no. you've entirely misunderstood.

Im saying that the volunteers are just that, they dont have to be they. They're aren't employed. If people take the piss out of then they dont have to continue volunteering. I imagine dealing with picky brides and grooms is part of the work all year round? The bride and groom in question should have put things back as they found them though I agree.

I haven't said anything about it being disrespectful to object to non church goers having their wedding in a church, I'm saying it's disrespectful to slag off a non church goers wedding calling it things like "a performance" And insinuating it is lesser than a church goers wedding.

I have already explained this.

If a B&G do not regularly attend church and are not involved in the church community what else is their church wedding but a performance?

This is the kind of nasty judgemental comment I mean user

pearl they might have been christened there, it might of been their grandparents or parents church. It might have some kind of meaning to the couple even though they dont actively practise the religion. There are hundreds of reasons why a building might mean something to someone even though they do not visit it every sunday.

A lot of people would say they follow a religion even if they do not regularly attend church. This does not make someone's wedding vows a performance or any less meaningful than someones who happens to attend church every weekend.

it's easy for a church to get quite insular, and forget they are there to serve the community.

But the community is not every single couple that comes along and wants to put things their way.
The community includes the flower volunteers, who actually belong to the church community.

@MargaretCavendish

Yes, I know.

But personally have a massive problem with the fact that churches in my home countries get to decide who gets to get married in them and how.

Not sure how it’s in the U.K. but many of the churches in my homecountry were built by people that were exploited and the money used for building them was usually acquired by similar means. Taxes are still used for restaurative purposes etc and yet the church officials - and not a publically elected people - decide who gets decide who (and also how...) one may use these buildings?

DH and I got married in my high school’s church / chapel. I didn’t feel hypocritical at all, service was lovely and made both of our families (mainly the older generations) v happy.

@lweji.. I'm not saying people should just roll over and be doormats or anything, just that people (and loving our neighbours) are what is important, and sometimes churches get hung up on 'tradition' and 'how it's always been' rather than on fostering relationships.

This was not about what has always been.
It was about not messing up or spoiling the hard work of volunteers.
It was about the bride and groom being thoughless, selfish and disregarding a request.
They were asked not to change the flowers probably because the church will have already have experiences of people damaging or not putting the flowers back.

They could easily have been accommodating and adapted their flower scheme.

Because they didn't, it does look like they treated it as a performance, as they couldn't even respect a simple request by the church to leave the decoration as it was.

Puzzled that's the administrative charge which goes to the CofE, not to the individual church

Yes, I know ... but that's precisely why I was surprised to see comments around churches only expecting small "donations" (at least, if we're still speaking of CofE)

That said, if someone's only interested in the place as "a pretty venue", perhaps they won't be very interested in what volunteers have done and all the rest?

I would never want red and white flowers at my wedding (old nursing superstition that it represents blood and bandages) if they were easily removable and I replaced them after the wedding I wouldn’t think I’d need permission. If it cost man hours to reinstate then YANBU.