Church flowers, do’s & don’ts.

It's normally considered good manners to leave one arrangement in the place where flowers would normally be for the Sunday (so whoever does the flowers doesn't' have to hang around waiting for your wedding to finish so they can do them)

The 'floral requirements' thing could mean that they have a florist who can provide a quote, or that you can only use their approved florist or even just that they need to check what arrangements you are going to have and where, so that you don't use anything which might damage a historic building. The only way to find out is to ask, so I would give this person a call to clarify.

It does seem an eye watering amount to pay for a church, but it sounds as if it is maybe one of those which have become very popular, so they try to whack up the charges to discourage too many from using it. I had a friend who got married in a very historic church and didn't have to pay at all because she was a member, but I know if you had no connection with or interest in the church then you did have to pay quite a bit to use it as a wedding venue.

If there are restrictions on the kind of arrangements you can use or if they require you to use an approved florist, then you really need to know that asap.

Finer details can always be dealt with closer to the time, but you really need to know now what your general options are, so it would be fine to call them.

A quick check of the website indicates the £560 covers the cost of the church hire, vicar, banns. It doesn't' cover things like cleaning, heating, organist etc, so that may be where the extra £195 has come from (assuming you are not cleaning and/or providing the musicians for your service yourself). I think £200 for the bell ringers isn't bad, since they will be having to give up a large portion of their day (and probably practice the night before) to do it. Churches that are popular venues for weddings have to charge for choir & bell ringers as otherwise, they would be doing it as a fulltime (unpaid!) job.