Just a thought, how about your local church taking a full page advert out in the local paper and offering a ‘Free Wedding‘. That’s right, after bellyaching about the number of people not getting married today, why not make it easier for them and offer to do a basic marriage for Free?
Get Married for Free
That’s right, [your church name here] will pay for you to get married.
We will provide the church, the minister and pay for the legal documentation, some basic flowers and, if you’d like, you can even hold your reception in our back hall.
What do you have to do? Come along to some marriage preaparation classes, fulfill the legal requirements to get married in the UK, book a suitable date and invite your family and friends.
Yes, I know, it’s hassle and you’re going to have to work with people who you don’t like and who will want to do things differently, but think of the opportunity.
Instead of moaning on and on about how terrible society is and how young people don’t get married any more, you’re actually doing something about it. So, it may cost you something at a time when you don’t have a lot, but I’m sure someone will come up with a way to cover costs. You could even get possible reception venues to sponsor the cost of the wedding and provide some options to the bride and groom if they wanted to go somewhere afterwards.
Doing something like this will give you a great way to share a wonderful day with people in your local community, give a positive message from the church and start to build relationships. Why not try it for a few weeks and see what happens.
This idea was developed from reading an article on Church Marketing Sucks
You could even offer a drive-thru service…
Do you think that cheap easy marriage –> cheap easy divorce? Does it matter if that’s the case?
No, not at all. I don’t think that there’s any correlation between the amount spent on the wedding and how meaningful it is.
I would guess that the Charles and Dianna wedding cost a fortune, but it didn’t last. Where as others have cost very little and lasted a lifetime.
Drive through weddings at ABC would be an issue due to the traffic restrictions.
Wasn’t thinking about the cost of the wedding (you should have seen ours…), but more that if you make it easy for people to just walk-in and get hitched, are you encouraging people to enter into it without serious thought? If you make it easy to get married, does it become a commodity that people take for granted and don’t take seriously?
Ah, got you.
That’s why I suggested that the only requirement would be that you must attend marriage prep classes. It’s not going to rule out the few that just want to sail through without thinking, but it makes it slightly more difficult than just turning up on the day. Also, it allows the church the time to discuss what marriage is about.
Fourteen years ago I volunteered with the Church of England Newspaper and had the task of find the average cost of getting married – about £8500 back then according to a wedding magazine. A church somewhere in the UK was doing cut price weddings by helping out with the hall, photography, flowers, and even the bride’s hairdressing. So not a new idea but still a good one – with those marriage prep classes.
But someone else pointed out recently that the marriage prep needs a follow up a few months later when the couple realise that some of those potential pitfalls might actually apply to them.
@Pete B
I think this just shows that there’s a lot more the church could be doing in working with couples. I always thought that it was a bit late doing the marriage prep after you got engaged. Some of the stuff would have been useful to think through while we were still dating.
Its a nice idea I agree but this assumes that the church involved that waive the fees in the first place. Many C of E churches struggle to pay their bills on a daily basis. Also, I don’t know what happens with other churches, but with the Church of England, a good proportion of the fees actually go to the Diocese rather than are kept by the church, so the church itself would have to pay the money anyhow. Having said that, the church could do more to encourage marriage as an idea, I agree…