Church wedding...help!

Hello! I'm a wedding photographer so I attend church wedding regularly. Firstly, don't worry about who will marry you. If no minister has been appointed the diocese will send one from a neighbouring parish.

You can usually select who does the readings. If none of your guests wish to read then the church will supply someone to do that.

With the certificates, I think the vicar hands you a copy after you have signed. You fill in two identical registers and then one of those is torn out for you. You choose who signs the register as witnesses, choose two people.

Thank you very much for your response. At least I can start thinking about the finer details before we confirm with the church, I like to be ahead of things just for the peace of mind. It would be lovely to select close family/friends for the readings, it gets them involved and would make the day more intimate for us.

Thanks again ?

I'd forgotten about witnesses signing the register! Another thing for me to sort out!

As for the readings, we are halving 2, and it was suggested we have one person from each side doing a reading (so we are having H2B's sister and my mother). One reading had to be a Bible reading (New Testament), but the other could be a poem or reading from elsewhere. If you want 2 bible readings, our reverent told us it is usually 1 from the Old Testament and 1 from the New Testament.

We were also told to choose 2-3 songs for signing the register (depending on how long the photographer at that point) - our church has 2 soloist in the choir that can sing our choices, and we were able to choose any song (pop song, songs from musicals etc) as long as it is singable by a soloist.

One of the lovely touches I remember from a wedding a while back was that they asked their grandparents to sign the register, one from each side.

We shall definitely think about and discuss who we would like to have as witnesses and readers in the meantime while we await our meeting with the soon to be announced reverent ?

Top tip on organ music - YouTube is your friend. My OH played for some friends last year, and when he was suggesting things they might like he was able to send them organ clips of everything thanks to YouTube. If you've looked things up, you'll have more of an idea when it comes to talking to your new Reverend or to the church organist.