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‘For richer for poorer’ most wanted by brides and grooms to be - Church trials ‘wedding workshop’ approach to new marriage mobility

27 August 2008

Couples preparing for their wedding day want the vows to be at the heart of their planning more than anything else – according to new research by the Archbishops’ Council’s Weddings Project. Extensive research among newly weds – published in this week’s Church Times – also reveals 9 out of 10 rated their church wedding experience as good to excellent.

The findings coincide with the launch of the Church of England Marriage Measure, which means couples have more churches to choose from after October 1. As many more people will be getting married far away from home, and also in line with what couples want, the Weddings Project has developed a single session approach to marriage preparation for test in two trial areas in the first year of the new law.

The challenge to listen to couples and respond proactively is revealed in an exclusive article in this week’s Church Times (dated 29th August), written by the Church of England’s marriage advisor, Sue Burridge.

“The Church is in a unique position. In its marriage preparation, it offers something couples cannot get in a hotel or stately home, and tries to demonstrate its care about not just the big day, but all the days afterwards,” underlines Sue in her article, which also discloses that 44 per cent of the general population agree the Church should support marriages before the wedding day (as well as after the day too). This is just one finding from new detailed research involving 411 engaged couples and 176 clergy in the Dioceses of Bradford and Oxford, as well as ordinands from two Cambridge theological colleges, and 1,800 brides-to-be at the National Wedding Shows.

The findings indicate that marriage preparation has had to change to meet the modern needs of couples who have perhaps spent several years together before the big day.

“When the researchers asked newly-weds about their church’s preparatory sessions,” Sue Burridge continues in the article, “they discovered a clear mismatch between what couples wanted and what was on offer. Many had already lived through the life lessons that the Church was eager to teach them, especially if, like most, they had lived together before marriage.”

Among the clergy surveyed “there was a strong sense that the vows work extremely well as a teaching vehicle; that the couples’ attention is very much on their wedding day; and that ‘prep works best when you focus them on what they are promising’”.

This is why, from September in the Dioceses of Bradford and Oxford, couples will be offered a single-session focusing on the wedding service itself and concentrating on the vows couples will make.

“In the study of newly-weds,” Sue writes in the Church Times, “the most popular option among several choices of preparation was ‘an opportunity to think about our wedding service and the vows we would make’ (43 per cent), followed by ‘a single-session course about marriage’ (30 per cent).”

She adds that the Weddings Project has also developed weddings workshop invitation cards for churches, to invite couples to a discussion that will offer time and space for them to think about their vows and the difference they will make.


Notes

The Marriage Measure changes will mean from October 1 an engaged couple are welcome to be married in church in a parish, not only if one of them lives or worships there, but also if just one of these applies:

• one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish;

• one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more;

• one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more;

• one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child’s lifetime;

• one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child’s lifetime;

• their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.

(All of these refer to Church of England services)

Church of England guidance on the Marriage Measure can be found here.

The changes do not apply to Church of England cathedrals and will not apply in Wales.