The Church Weddings Handbook. Gillian Oliver

start again.

      So there is a fundamental right to a church wedding. It may be not well known in England today, but that does not take away from the truth of it. It means that, churchgoer or not, your local church is open to you, and you are welcome to this sacrament without promise of improvement. It is an impulse very close to a statement attributed to Archbishop William Temple, that the Church of England is the organisation that exists for people not its members.

      The Weddings Project’s research did find new evidence about couples’ seriousness about God. This is true. However, being serious about God is not a legal requirement, and you cannot legally put anything in the way of couples except the demands of the law.

      The Marriage Measure

      Following a period of dramatic and sustained social mobility in England, Church leaders began to wonder if the law was actually causing them to turn away more people than they were marrying. People who moved away from a parish were instantly barred from marrying there. People whose parents or grandparents were married in a church had no consequent right to celebrate their wedding there too. It became evident that the law was too restrictive, and so the Church took the initiative to reform it.

      In doing so it extended the basic parishioner’s right in an amendment the like of which has not been seen since marriage law itself was first framed. This added seven new ways to marry in a church where you do not live. These are set out in full at Find a Church at www.yourchurchwedding.org.