Weddings - An Idiot's Guide..??

Me too - I'm also new but a long time browser, and it's great to be here isn't it?

Hi HelsAngel welcome to Hitched!!

I'm afraid I can't help with the military padre thing, I'm still new to this planning lark too even though I've been engaged almost a year!

Just wanted to post to welcome you and congratulate you on your upcoming wedding!

Welcome to Hitched, and congratulations on your engagement ?

I don't know anything about military Padres I'm afraid, but I would expect you may find they're quite limited on where they can officiate. Both the Church and registry offices can be protective and not want "outsiders" doing services, especially the legal bits. So I would get that settled (the Padre himself will probably know much more about the situation and be able to advise you) first before getting your heart set on anything. Setting a date and a venue is the next big thing - I guess sometime after your OH returns from deployment?

In order to pick a venue, it helps to have a rough idea of numbers you'll be inviting, the area where you want it and whether you want the ceremony on site or elsewhere (I guess your conversation with the Padre will help you decide). Once that's done, unless you have a special date in mind, just see when they're free!

Good luck with it all!

Right, the first thing to do, as you've identified, is coordinate a venue and your ceremony. For me, I looked at venues (well, just one) and made a preliminary booking (no monies exchanged). The next day, I contacted the register office to find out if a registrar was available, was pencilled in for the registrar, phoned back the venue to check my booking could still be made, phoned back the registrar and booked (paid deposit over the phone) and finally, phoned back the venue to confirm the booking (deposit to be paid upon receipt of contract). It was a fairly frantic 30 mins or so.

Considerations for your situation will be: can a Padre legally marry you in a church or civil venue? If not, you might consider having the legal part (either in church or a civil venue) and then having a small "blessing" afterwards. In a civil ceremony, as long as this doesn't form part of the legal ceremony, it should be OK (you know you can't have any religious content in a civil ceremony, yes?). One option might be a quick register office thingy in the morning, followed by a service led by the Padre at your venue later later on? That way he's not doing any of the legal bits.

Thank you all. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to me. I'm a massive drama queen at the best of times so combining this with a wedding is going to put me into EPIC DQ territory! Congratulations also to you all for your forthcoming or past weddings.

I guess really we can't do anything about anything until we've sorted with Padre if he can marry us. His church is about 30 minutes away from where I live and right outside camp. It's not really a nice place to look at and it's smack bang in the middle of the married quarters housing estate so it's not ideally what we want. Also, there's no parking so logistically it'd be a nightmare.

I want my parish church ideally (round the corner from my house and where my brother and I were christened and I was confirmed) but I'm open to suggestion, as is OH. So it's now just to wait and see what Padre says on Sunday. Thanks again for the input.

Congratulations! I'm new here too

Fingers crossed it all goes well! Also, I keep having the exact same reaction as you - ohmygod, I'm going to have a husband. I'm going to be a wife!

x

I just wanted to update on this, 1 in case anyone else found the thread while searching and wanted the answer and 2, so people don't think I'm a spammer because I'm more of a lurker and have a low post count! I also need to ask a few more questions but I'll site search first and ask if necessary.

So, from where we were in January, everything except BMs is done. With regards to Padre/church/ceremony etc. we've booked the parish church which was what we wanted and we've met with the Vicar and spoken to Padre.

Padre is allowed to conduct the service as long as he's ordained for Anglican/CoE ceremonies (which he is). The only other obstacle is that the Vicar at the church might not be too keen on stepping aside. It's their church and if they don't want you to "bring your own Vicar" then it's their call. Luckily, our Vicar has said "As long as it's not illegal, the answer is yes to everything". If we want to walk down the aisle to the theme tune of Eastenders, we can. (we don't by the way!) We're very lucky, we're going to get it exactly as we wanted. Padre will speak, say the whole military bit and conduct the vows, the vicar will lead the ceremony and work with Padre.

And as an added bonus, some of H2B’s squadron are going to do a Guard of Honour for us. I actually cannot wait!

Good result! Pleased it's worked out.

That is fab news, great to hear you are getting your big day just as you wanted ?

Although I have to say this makes me feel really disorganised cos we got engaged 3 days after you but still haven't made any decisions! We've been to see venues, gone to wedding fairs, thought about it a lot (well that's more I than we, I think!) but nothing has been booked. I keep telling people we are making sure we make the right decisions, but it's more like we are avoiding making any decisions! ? I think we need to take a leaf out of your book and get moving!