Thinking of changing service from church to civil

How close together are the venues? Times?

The church is about 10 min drive from the venue

Maybe you should look and see where you would get married be it a civil ceremony, and plan out both services (hymns/music/readings etc) to see how each 'feels'. Then you might find things you can/can't do in each and see the service that would suit you - hopefully be one you want more.

Personally I want a personal service should be personal and I cannot do that in a church - one reason being I don't know what readings/hymns I would even use to make it personal.

I also think (although I know it can be controversial and don't mean to offend) unless you want God as part of your marriage and lives then you shouldn't marry in a church.

For me the day & marriage as a whole will include god, but it doesn't have to be in a church either way. I am more concerned about OH having a church wedding even though he is not as much of a Christian as I.

I know he thinks it should be in a church, but I think he says that because of me and doesnt believe that I am not bothered

The main things for us is to have the traditions, which means saying the Christian vows.

But would the wedding be any less traditional if we had a civil ceremony?

It depends on this ^ for you and your OH. I have been looking at our civil cermeony vows, and to me they sound quite traditional. In fact OH said he wanted to say the traditonal ones, but decided they were 'too' traditional! With civil you can still say things like love honour and obey, til death do us part etc, as far as I can tell anyway. Which bits do you particularly want?

A word of warning on this. We had a civil ceremony in a register office, but wanted to do the 'traditional' churchy vows but without the mentions of God. However, our registrar was quite strict about this and said it didn't matter that God wasn't mentioned (nor was anything 'spiritual'), he still wouldn't let us say "to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer" etc. So we had to chop and change the vows quite significantly to get them approved.

They still sounded fairly 'traditional' in my opinion, but they definitely weren't the love honour obey and til death do us part ones. However, I do believe this is discretionary and you will get different answers from different boroughs. We were able to email our vows in to a generic council address and then we emailed back and forth until they were approved; you could see if your council lets you do this and then you can see what they will and will not allow.

I'd say to get married in the church. If I were to get married I'd like to have the service in one regardless of how looney the Vicar was and I'm not really very religious at all due to a Catholic Mum and Christian Dad.

Churches are symbolic of a belief though. It's true that certain ones relate to certain faiths but on your wedding day it's a symbol of two people coming together and that you believe in each other.

The amount of couples I've met who read the Baans (spelling?) just so they can get married in the church is quite a large number...none of them appear to feel funny about doing this because they want to say their vows in a church, in a symbolic way, to each other.

That's all that counts right?

Thanks MrsJ - it was in our booklet options so I assumed it was ok with all the registrars for that borough. Doesn't matter anyway, I am not at all bothered as long as we say some form of vow, and OH said at first he wanted the traditional style, now he wants totally modern and I have re-written them a bit so we just need to get the rewritten approved!

OP would you regret not having the religious element at all if you went for civil?

Can't help you decide between church and civil but before you do decide make sure there is a registar free for your date if you went with civil. (I have my practical head on) We struggled and we were booking over 18mths before wedding.

My first wedding was in a church and to be honest I think the only reason was to keep cost low. It did make our grandparents happy! This time it will be civil and feel it is more us.

x

If you go for a civil ceremony you'll also have to consider the music and readings you want. It's similar to the situation with the vows. If you're having music or readings I'm fairly sure they won't allow anything religious at a civil ceremony.

Our wedding will be a civil ceremony with everything under one roof. I like the simplicity of this - particularly with a winter wedding in a rural area where travel for the guests might not be so easy. I'm also an athiest and OH is agnostic and understands that my lack of spirituality means a lot to me. This made the choice between church wedding or civil ceremony a bit of a no-brainer.

Maybe look at other churches, possible civil ceremony venues or speak to a registrar or vicar. It might be that you're not sure what you want but you'll know it when you see it. Hope this helps!

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