The normal procedure for booking a wedding is to telephone the Rector, and provisionally agree a time and date. If this is done in the year before the wedding, then please ring again at the beginning of the new year (when organists and vergers are being booked), to confirm the booking. Otherwise the first of two interviews will be fixed for approximately three months before the wedding date. At the first interview marriage in general will be discussed, and the details of the wedding will be covered. The second interview will be arranged for the last fortnight or so before the wedding, and this will be a walk through rehearsal in church.

Banns
Banns need to be read in the parish churches of both the Bride and the Groom. They are read for three Sundays within a period of three months of the wedding.

Usual Order of the Service (About 25 minutes)
The Bridal March
Welcome, and Opening Prayer,
First Hymn
The Marriage
Second Hymn
Reading and Address
Prayers
Signing of the Registers
The Wedding March

Introduction
Traditionally, a couple had a right, under English Law, to marry in the Church of England in the parish church where one or both of them lived, whether they were baptised or not, and whether they were churchgoers are not. To marry in any other parish required a special licence or six months of regular attendance followed by entry on the local church electoral roll.

But new laws, initiated by the Church of England and approved by Parliament in October 2008, added to this right of residency, making it just as easy for couples to marry in a church where they had a family or other special connection, even if they didn’t live there.

The changes mean an engaged couple are welcome to be married in church in a parish if just one of these applies:

* one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish;

* one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more;

* one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more;

* one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child’s lifetime;

* one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child’s lifetime;

* their parents or grandparents were married in the parish