Church Weddings with grounds?

Welcome to Hitched Melissa.

Can't be of much help with your questions but I do think it depends on the individual church when it comes to using your own pastor. A friend wanted to do this and didn't find it too easy I'm afraid. Again the garden party is something that you just need to ask the pastor.

Hi Melissa!

Welcome to hitched!? I'm sure there will be plenty of people that will be able to help you.

To be honest, I'm not sure that you will be able to get your pastor to go to another church, but the only way to find out is to ask!

Could you not use the church that you belong to & then hire a venue with great grounds - like a National Trust site?xx

I'm getting married in my local church so don't know if it's possible for them to conduct your wedding at a different church or not, I guess it's down to the individual churches and pastors. There's no harm in asking! Have you considered what would happen if the weather is poor? Maybe try to find a church with a hall so you have somewhere to shelter if needed!

Welcome to Hitched!

Hi Melissa welcome to hitched. I still feel like a bit of a newbie on here but everyone is really friendly and the opinions are always honest :o)

Your situation is similar but not quite the same as when my sister got married.

She got married at our local church but her husbands father is a vicar. They managed to agree with the vicar at our local church that her husbands father could be part of the wedding ceremony and he actually married them, so maybe you may be able to come to some sort of compromise?

I'm not sure about the garden party afterwards though. I know many churches use their grounds for burials and if this is the case at the church you are thinking of it might not be the most appropriate place for a party to be held. Perhaps do what BonnieLass suggested and look for a venue with lovely grounds.

HTH Susan x.

Hi melissa, and welcome to hitched!!

I think you may have a tough battle on your hands there. We wanted to get married at a church which wasn't our local parish but had great dificulty. We went around a load of churchs local to our reception venues and spoke to various vicars and most of them said that we could not marry there as we were not in the parish. (a few of them said if we had a strong family connection to the church we could, i.e parents married there, lived in the village for more than 1 year in the past)

This caused us a lot of problems as we couldnt marry in our local church as it just wasn't practical as our local church was bramber castle church and up a huge hill, no good for all the elderly guests, and it was a tiny church. Eventually a church did agree to marry us, but after a lot of persuading, even though the church itself is only 1mile away from our house, but we aren't classed as 'part of the parish' so we have to go to church very sunday until the wedding to become part of the parish.

So maybe if you dont have any family connections to the churhes you are looking at you may have to go to church every sunday (which might be a nightmare if you live far away!!)

Cant be any help with regards to your pastor though im affraid!!

Hope that helps!!

You might struggle to find exactly what you are looking for tbh, That said it's not impossible with work, there's no real register of churches so it's a case of phoning them all individually.

Another option would be to find a Mansion type venue with it's own chapel - it's unlikely you'd be able to actually marry legally in the chapel, but you could do that the day before at the local register office and then have the full ceremony - but without the actual legal register signing - in the chapel.

Hi there - welcome to Hitched!

Like others have said you should probably ask your Pastor to get a definitive answer on whether he can conduct a ceremony at another church - there may be some legal regulations that he needs to comply with.

My brother-in-law is a CofE vicar and lives some distance from us. I am a Methodist and have attended our local Methodist church all my life. When we got married I wanted to marry in the church I'd been to all my life but my husband obviously wanted his brother to conduct the ceremony. Obviously, not only was he from another area but also from another Christian denomination. Anyway, it turned out that the Minister of my church had to do the legal vows as she was effectively the 'registrar' but my brother-in-law did other parts of the service (prayers, sermon etc). You may find that you have to comply with a similar regulation but the only way to find out is to ask your Pastor.

As far as venues are concerned - you could try somewhere like www.wasing-weddings.co.uk - it's Berkshire (rather than Surrey or Kent) but is beautiful and has a lovely chapel in the grounds so you could have a religious ceremony plus your garden party and reception all in one place. It's a venue I work with all the time and can thorougly recommend.

HTH
Catherine

I think you can marry in a church ou of your parish but beware you ahve to attend regualry for 6 months to get onto the electoral registert. if you choose Kent or Surrey it will be quite a trek every Sunday for 6 months.

We had the same issue as we (I) wanted a more traditional church but we went for one in wilmington which is a compromise.

X

Hi again,

I remembered this place from when I was looking at venues, it's in Essex and has a church in the grounds. You may need to compromise on the pastor though?

http://www.braxtedpark.co.uk/weddings.cfm