Getting Married in Church

It's fairly simple, especially if you both live in the parish where you want to get married.

1. First, contact us to discuss the date and time (and church) you've got in mind, and we'll get that agreed. 
2. We will hold that time and date for you for 14 days. During that time you'll need to pay £100 deposit (which will come off the final account, which you'll usually receive a few  weeks before your wedding day) to secure the date. (Should you need to cancel, we'll refund you as long as you give us two months' notice.) 
3. You complete a form (the 'Banns form,' which can be downloaded from the site, or which we'll send to you). On it you can put in preferences like whether you'd like the organ, or bells (if available)  as well as details we need for the paperwork - we may need to ask you to show us some additional documents. (We do need you to return the form as quickly as possible so we can book organists or bells and advise on anything else which might need arranging well in advance of the day.)
4. In the three months before the wedding, it will be announced at the main Sunday service ('calling the Banns') that you're getting married. If one (or both)  of you live in a parish not in the Barton group, you'll need to arrange for this to be done in that parish church as well.  Unless you're marrying a foreign national, there's no need to apply for a licence from the Register Office, and in those unusual circumstances where the Banns process can't be used, we'll guide you through the process.
5. And that's it! Everything else, like the detailed wedding planning and a rehearsal we'll sort out with you in the weeks and months before the wedding. 

Whether it's after ten years of marriage, when you'd like to revisit your wedding day with a thanksgiving service, or a Church service to mark your wedding or partnership after a civil ceremony, or if you've married abroad and want to celebrate with family and friends 'back home' - or many other lifetime partnership events, get in touch and we'll do our best to offer a service to help your celebration.

Yes! In England, you have a right to get married in your parish church, regardless of your religious background. 

If you have a connection with the Church where you'd like to marry, the answer is usually 'yes.' The connection could be something like one of you used to live there, or your parents did, or they got married there, or that's the Church you go to. Contact us, and we'll help work it out with you.

Yes! We trust you to have done your best to make sure that your new marriage won't hurt or upset others before coming to us, and we don't pry. English law means we will need to see decree(s) absolute before the wedding - but we don't need to know what's written in them.

Yes! The Church of England has approved the Church blessing of same-sex marriage. Same-sex relationships are every bit as holy, joyful  and worthy of God's blessing as straight ones (and, of course, just as stressful, challenging, and, from time to time, exasperating, too). 

We're not yet permitted to do the legal marriage in Church, but at last we're allowed to offer everyone a proper Church service publicly to celebrate and bless their new lives together.

About half the usual bill for flowers, if the latest statistics are to be believed....

The costs split into three:

1. The statutory fees, set by Parliament each year. In 2024 these are now £567 if you both live in the parish where you're getting married.
2. The local fees, including a verger, who will set Church up, help look after your guests, and clear up afterwards  (about £40) and any travel costs the priest taking the service may have (between £0 and £15).
3. The optional fees, which are paid to the organist (about £60) and bell ringers (from about £20 in some of the villages up to £120 at St Mary's), and for heating in the winter months (£30-£40).

All six of our parish Churches are either Grade 1 or Grade 2* listed buildings: our historic settings come free of charge!

Probably not as long as you think, especially if you're able (if necessary) to be flexible about a time. In many ways, especially for a simple wedding, the main issue is getting the legal preliminaries done:

• If you're getting married by banns, which is the most popular and cheapest option, we need three clear Sundays before the wedding.
• If you need to get married urgently (say, because one of you is going on a tour of duty with the military), then if you have the right documents available we can probably marry you by common licence. At a push, that could be done in a matter of hours (but we wouldn't recommend it, for obvious reasons, including the extra expense).
• If one of you is a foreign national, you may well have to go through a formal interview with the N Lincs Registrar. That process can take several months, not weeks, so we'd recommend leaving four, five or even six months between booking and the wedding itself.

The chances are that the time factor will have more to do with your reception venue than the availability of Church, but (broadly speaking) the more notice we have the better, especially for getting bell-ringers or an organist arranged.

It happens, for all sorts of reasons, and we'll make it as simple as possible for you. 

• First, we'll check that it's genuine and that no-one's trying to play an unpleasant prank on you. It's never happened yet here, but we do like to make sure!
• If you want to postpone we'll re-arrange the date with you, not a problem, either to a firm date or to a provisional one.
• If you need to cancel and we have at least two months' notice, we'll return your deposit in full. (With less than two months' notice your deposit would only be returned under exceptional circumstances, such as serious illness or bereavement.)