Then there was the challenge of finding roads around Cardiff. Not all A roads have the green backing to their number. A lot of signposts are overgrown and ignored. Street names are just completely missing.

Anyway, it was all for Jo and James’ wedding. The sun shone, the service was great and the whole day flew by. We even made it home by midnight to get some reasonable sleep.

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

This was taken on Saturday 16th May 2009 at Highfield Church in Southampton. Tany’s wearing the white dress and I’m stood next to her. At this point we are probably somewhere in the middle of saying our vows.

Tany’s just pointed out to me that I haven’t written anything on this blog about our wedding day.

Well, here are some pictures for you to enjoy, although, there are hundreds more and any Facebook friends will have access to a never ending stream from the day.

The tone for the day was set for me by clearing out for breakfast with the boys in a greasy spoon on Shirley High Street. A perfect setup as I wasn’t going to get the chance to eat again until 5pm.

Then some of us started to gather at the Highfield pub about two hours before the service. It gave a chance to spend time talking to friends before the ceremony. I guess that’s the one thing from the day that we really would have liked to have changed, having time to talk to everyone who had made the effort to come and celebrate with us.

So many friends came along to celebrate with us, it was quite a wonderful day. The church was packed and there was a wonderful, relaxed, celebration type feel to the whole thing. Tany looked stunning and I felt pretty special.

Then, in the evening, we filled Minstead Village Hall, enjoyed a stunning hog roast and partied with friends.

So many people had played a part in the day. Friends and family that helped to set up the hall, arrange the flowers, provide the music and teach me how to dance; then there were those that provided chair covers and table cloths, the serving staff that stayed on to help cut the cake, plus taking the photographs and drive the wedding car. By far and away the best part of the whole thing was being able to celebrate with so many friends and have them involved.

Thank you everyone, we feel very special.

As work has been getting busier it’s becoming harder to think, but at times like this it’s even more important. In the office I’ve tried to instigate some reflection time into the week. We spend 30 minutes on Monday talking and praying about what’s going to take place during the week ahead, on a Friday afternoon we look back and see what has happened and pray and thank God.

This week we reflected on:
The Eden to Eternity tour. I went on Wednesday to see the production and was really impressed. Tany describes it as being like seeing the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which is a huge complement. Anyway, after a shaky start it’s picked up, both in the quality of the production and the size of the crowds.

On the back of that we are getting some good PR and some local radio stations are going to be doing some interviews around this on Sunday morning.

We also had a guy on UCB Radio on Tuesday talking about lost languages and the work we do to protect native languages. This also required some updating of the website and loading the first properly edited (but still rough) Wycliffe podcast.

I also interviewed some of the people who are meeting here discussing scripture use. It’s a bit of the operation that we probably don’t talk about enough, as the aim of Wycliffe isn’t just to translate Bibles, but also to enable communities to read and understand them. To do this we have to teach literacy and provide some level of education.

Then there were just the straightforward, unglamorous stuff that has to take place during the week, mailings, filing, meetings and minutes.

So I’m looking forward to this weekend. Time with Tany, a friend’s wedding, more marriage preparation stuff… but also the drive home. Have a good weekend folks.

Tany and I had a little social bash at the Southwestern Arms lat night. It was to celebrate our engagement and for me to say goodbye to my Southampton friends before leaving here at the end of next week. Invites were sent out on Facebook and we thought we’d just sit back and wait to see what happens, I was thinking that a group of 20 would be good. I didn’t really expect so many folk to turn out (we took over the top floor of the pub), or people to travel so far to join us. It was an awesome evening and I really do have some great friends.

Eddie was the only person with a camera so I’m going to have to wait for the pictures to appear on Facebook.

A big thanks to everyone who came along, it was a really special evening.