Getting married in c of e church without any connections to it

[Monica2012]

my dp and I are getting married next year and Although neither of is attend church we'd both love to be married with gods blessing. We have seen an amazing little church about 12 miles away, it's so beautiful and we'd love to
Get married there, but I've been reading up and it says to
Get married in a c of e you have to have
Local connections to that parish and we have none! Is there no way around this? I have my heart set on this church I almost cried when I saw it!

Can you not attend every week until the wedding? If you want Gods blessing I assume one of you must have some sort of belief?

If you have no connections then you have to attend services there regularly (not weekly I don't think, maybe at least once a month) for a few months before.

Vicars are usually really friendly and approchable, so your first step would be to phone them and explain the situation.

My aunt is a Vicar and pretty cool about marrying folk unconnected to the Church, proveded their hearts are in the right place and they attend 'on a regular basis' as some regulation requires.

Good on you guys for wanting God's blessing on your marriage!

 and all the best for next year x

people get married in white when they are not virgins
people who are not religious get married in churches all the time
people who arnt sure that they want to get married take the vow of till death do us part without really meaning it...
what im trying to say is im sure it will be fine

Yes you can. www.yourchurchwedding.org/youre-welcome/more-churches-to-choose-from.aspx your best bet would be to attend regularly for 6 months, not too difficult if it's only 12 miles away.

Some info from the c of e here

www.yourchurchwedding.org/faqs/we-have-no-connections-to-a-particular-church-can-we-still-get-married-there.aspx

X post with hc

What you need is called 'qualifying connection'. This can be done in various ways - if you or parents have lived in the parish for 6 months at some time in your lifetime, , parents married there etc. If none of that applies then you need to worship in the parish for 6 months. As suggested above, make contact with parish priest and see how it all goes - and yes, most of us are friendly and enjoy welcoming couples who want to marry in church. A good place to look for contact details is the website achurchnearyou.com.

Gosh, the CofE is way more tolerant than the RC Church. Good old Henry!!![bugrin]

Bit of inside advice, when you contact the vicar make sure

A. You have already attended a service there if not more than one. Say hello to people while you are there.

B. you have thought through in your mind why you want to get married in church and be ready to explain why it is important to have Gods blessing

C. You know why it's that church and not your local church that you want to get married in

D. You understand that it being a pretty church, the vicar probably gets lots of requests to do weddings and may be very busy as a result.

E. if you have been married before or of your husband to be has been, you are ready to talk through why the prevus marriage ended.

I hope you have the wedding you dream of, but if it's a no, please concentrate on why you want to marry your dp rather than the venue. Marriage is for life not just a day :)

Thanks so much for all your advice and help. We are so very excited to have found this church and the hope we still may be able to marry in it is fantastic news! I'll ring the vicar on Tuesday :)

If you don't live in the parish, it's possible to be married there if one of you is on the electoral role of that parish. You could register after worshipping there for a time. Only difference then is that you will need the banns publishing in up to 3 places - the parish in which of you live, and the church where you are on the electoral roll and where you want to marry.

Yes, phone the vicar - it's the only way to find out either way!

Why don't you go to the church on a Sunday, then chat to the vicar afterwards?

If people from outside out parish want to get married here they have to live here for 2 weeks.

I deal with the wedding bookings at my church (and baptisms and funerals) and our vicars and rector all have a "we'll try our hardest to say yes" kind of approach. We are the "pretty" church and have a lot of people travel in for weddings but still more than happy to do whatever we can do to accomodate people. So I second (or more likely 5th or 6th) the phone them up and chat to them, or even better go to a service and make a bee line for the vicar after the service.

I got married at a church that I had no qualifying connection with and all it meant was my husband had to go "regularly" for the 6 months before we got married. Regularly is a very loose term though, I was working in another church in another city and he was travelling abroad for work or coming to visit me and arranging somewhere for us to live after (and finding a church for us to settle in after) so I think he went 6 times in total. But the vicar knew our circumstances and why we wanted to marry there and was totally fine with it. This was before the rules changed so it should be easier to marry in a specific church, but I guess it may depends on the vicar.

Hope it goes well!!

false address

We temporarily had DH 'move house'

Kayano

Doing that is a lie, I find it hard how you can lie before the law (banns that are read saying x of this parish are untrue and therefore unlawful) and before God.

The laws of the land have been changed recently to allow more people to get married in the church of there choice. A connection to a church now includes having yourself, grandparents or parents who were married, baptised, worshiped or lived in a parish or go to the church school connected with it.

The vicar has enough to do trying to make sure they keep the laws when it comes to taking weddings, it's so hard when people lie to get their own way.

It is possible to have a reason to stop a wedding in illegal circumstances

Oh the irony of Kayano's post. Actually it makes me very sad, it makes a mockery of true belief to ask God's blessing on a marriage you've lied to arrange. He's a God of justice as well as mercy.

OP it is entirely possible to arrange what you want in a morally and legally correct way.

My post seems rather harsh, sorry

It is ok to live in the parish for two weeks, but that is not just putting a suitcase of clothes in the house for the time.

People we have known have rented a house, lived in a B&B stayed with friends etc, for the 2 weeks or more. This is OK

Hebegebies, the rules have changed. There are other ways to demonstrate a connection to a church now. OP just needs to become a regular worshipper there, which, given she is seeking God's blessing, would be a good idea anyway. Yes it's a means to an end (time in exchange for a nice venue) but hopefully it'll deepen her faith too and bring her in to contact with people who can guide and strengthen her marriage and her faith.

Hi, I was brought up RC and my DH C of E. At the time we got married, 15 years ago, we like the look of a C of E church near to where I had a flat at the time, DH lived in anther part of the city. We asked an RC priest for a joint RC and C of E ceremony at the C of E church. BAD IDEA!!!!!!!!!! Priest made me feel like I would go to hell. Anyway the upshot of this was that we contacted the vicar and we started to go for regular meetings with him and services at the church, it might have been for about 6 months, can't really remember but I do look back on this time very fondly. Should think you would have to do something along these lines? All the very best with your plans.

Happy, yes there are many qualifying connections thankfully.

1/3 of the weddings this year are couples who have completed the Alpha course!