Getting married is one of the most serious decisions you will ever make.
And marrying in church is personal, meaningful, spiritual and beautiful, just as you want it to be.
At St Oswalds, we love to hold weddings, and we will warmly welcome you and your fiancé, your families and friends to your big day. We can guide you towards resources that will help you make the most of your wonderful day.
Reasons for marrying in church
There are lots of beautiful places that you can choose to get married in. But it’s only if you choose a church that you get a vicar doing your wedding. It’s not just your wedding day, but your marriage that matters. With a church wedding you have someone you can talk to, someone who will help you talk to each other to understand more about the promises you are making to each other.
In a church wedding you also have people who you can trust, who will pray for you and people who you can laugh with and cry with. Compared to any other wedding venue you might choose, churches are not in it to make money out of you, but to enable God to pour out his blessing upon you on your wedding day and in the years to come.
It is only in a church wedding that you will be able to say to each other the ancient declarations and vows that are a blueprint for a successful relationship within the eternal love of God. You don’t need a separate registrar, a vicar does that bit too.
Who can get married at St Oswald’s?
Anyone who lives in Bollington, or used to live in Bollington, has a legal entitlement to be married in St Oswald’s – it’s your parish church and we are here for you. You don’t have to go to church to be married in this special place in the heart of your community. Most wedding couples are new to church. In most weddings we do at St Oswald’s, at least one of the couple have been married previously, many couples already have children and have been together for years. We can do a combined wedding and christening service. The law does not yet allow us to marry same-sex couples.
St Oswald’s is a place you’ll be able to come back to again and again. You can get to know it well and it can become your church, bringing God’s blessing into your special family moments.
We love doing weddings and have real expertise. We love getting the details right for the couple, using our experience to help couples with all their decisions. St Oswald’s is such a beautiful building for weddings, it is light and colourful with lots of space and comfy seats (so important when the bride is late!!). It is such a happy place, the very walls are soaked with love.
Rev Nancy says: “I love doing local weddings and getting to know couples, after the honeymoon, see the photos, being able to bump into them in the pub, in school, in the shop, hearing about what’s going on in their lives. I’ve been invited round to bless a new house, been asked to christen children, do a funeral for a family member, welcomed them to sing carols at Christmas, shared jokes with them, been there to listen if they have relationship problems. I pray for them.”
Church weddings don’t have to be big weddings – you can get married in church without lots of guests, two witnesses are needed, but that’s it. Small weddings in church are very intimate, personal and beautiful, God will be there for you blessing your marriage just the same.
See the Church of England weddings website for lots of ideas and help with planning weddings, details of choices of hymns and readings for ceremonies, examples of real weddings. It also has detailed advice on legal requirements, banns, licences, mixed faith marriages etc. All this can be found at Your Church Wedding and chat to Rev Nancy about getting married at St Oswald’s.