was the right place for it, never mind persuading anyone else about it.
A ‘proper’ wedding
This word ‘proper’ has become a key for the Weddings Project and it is packed with meaning and application. To help us understand it, we spoke to academics including sociologists of religion. What they told us lay behind the word ‘proper’ gave us so much hope for the spiritual seriousness of England that we weren’t sure whether to believe them. So in a more focused survey of 822 people marrying in Bradford and the Buckingham Archdeaconry of Oxford our research team probed more deeply. They asked them what the main reason was for choosing church for their wedding. Not a reason, but the reason. They asked people in groups, at three points along the journey:
at the moment of first contact (before they were married but when they were first in touch with the church)
around the time of the ceremony
and a year later.
One option researchers gave as the main reason for marrying in church was this: ‘The main reason for choosing church for me personally was the appearance of the church or chapel.’ And here’s what they found: before the day only 4% said the main reason they chose church was because of its appearance. Of those questioned around the time of their wedding, only 1% said that was the main reason. And a year after the day, not a single person questioned could say that the look of church was the standout reason they chose it for their wedding.
On the other hand, a number of other reasons were advanced by more than 80% of the people questioned as the main reason for choosing church over any other venue. And they were all God reasons. They were things like this: ‘We wanted to make our vows before God’; ‘We wanted to ask for his blessing’; ‘We wanted a spiritual side to our wedding’; ‘We wanted the sacred ambience of the church’; ‘It was something to do with my family’s faith or mine’ (or my partner’s faith or mine); ‘We wanted a proper wedding’; ‘We wanted a traditional wedding.’
Our researchers found that for about two thirds of couples the appearance of the building is a reason to choose a particular church over another. But when it comes to choosing to be married in church at all, it hardly figures. Only one in a hundred would say they had originally chosen church for what meets the eye.
So this word ‘proper’ comes to the Church from a wordless world, tied up in all these other high-scoring phrases about God and his felt presence. It’s a word more commonly used by couples in the south of England, and it’s a counterpart to ‘traditional’ which is used more in the north. It’s not a word that necessarily describes things you can see. It’s a word about story, ceremony, depth, rightness, seriousness, appropriateness, gravity and dignity. All words which align with what God brings to a marriage service.
To find out a little more about what ‘proper’ feels like, here’s how one mother of the bride put it when she walked into a church in Worcestershire with her daughter Nicky. What she said was filmed by the BBC for their hit show Don’t Tell The Bride. ‘For me, it’s not about your wedding, this place’, Nicky’s mum said. ‘It’s the essence of the place, the feel of the wood, it’s just a calmness that descends. The true essence of marriage is a promise in the eyes of God to one another. It’s got to be, hasn’t it? It’s got to be in a church.’
Lost in translation
Women are more likely to talk about spirituality by talking about how they feel. I don’t know how many people who come to church where you are say they did so because of the ‘feel of the wood’. But most of us can relate to that phrase of Nicky’s mum’s: the calm that descends, the wonder of promise-making in the sight of God. Because we live in a culture that is losing the language of orthodox Christian belief, other words are being used instead, foundational words about yearning, experience and value. There is a good chance we might not recognise them as God words when we first hear them. These days, some things are lost in translation, and that might mean the moment of seriousness is shrouded with laughter, or it might mean that the words people use can leave us sensing they are not serious, when in fact they are.
Sarah, a beautician from the north of England, is marrying in church in the village where she grew up. She hasn’t been back since she was in the Brownies. So why does she want to marry there? ‘We’ve always wanted to get married in church, because it’s traditional and it means more than just a hotel room. You’ve got God’s blessing if you like’, and she starts to laugh. Laughing in the sense of ‘me, talk about God’s blessing? How ridiculous does that sound?’
A bride from Oxfordshire spoke to our researchers wistfully about this failure to communicate with the vicar on the first meeting. ‘I think he just thought I was some girl that wanted a big white wedding, rather than the fact that it had any sentimental value to it.’ Sentimental value? You or I may be tempted to hear the word ‘sentiment’ over the word ‘value’, but this bride was expressing her seriousness in the only words she had.
So let’s get back to our bride on the other end of your phone. We have established that she is serious about marriage. Even though to her it might mean something different from what it means to you, and sits later in life, she is no less serious about it. She doesn’t have to get married, after all. What can we conclude then about why she is ringing you – why she wants to marry in church? Well, she doesn’t have to choose church. If she just wants a beautiful building there are plenty of those available on the secular wedding scene. So your bride wants to marry in church because she wants God there. And of course that is a very promising place to begin.
Seriousness meets a block
So with all this seriousness in England today, yearning for marriage and desire for God’s blessing, it must be the simplest thing in the world for a bride to pick up the phone to you and ask if you would conduct their wedding for them. Yes?
No.
Researchers discovered that this seriousness meets a big block somewhere. What they found is that brides are unlikely to get to the point of picking up the phone in the first place. So big are the obstacles in their own mind, they are more likely to give up altogether without even trying and go somewhere else instead.
We have to take you to one sofa in England, and to one bride and groom talking about their ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to choosing a church wedding. On the face of it they should be untroubled. They are connected under the law because the bride’s parents married in the church and so can they. The legal right extends now to them just as if they were resident in the parish. So what’s the problem then? The bride spells out the dilemma:
‘Yeah, I’ve always thought I’d get married in a church, but I do feel a bit hypocritical because I’m not particularly religious. My parents got married in the same church we’re getting married in, which is nice for me but it doesn’t sit very easily for me. I think if we both felt the same way as I do then I’d feel very unhappy about getting married in church, which is such a shame because I do want to get married in church … but for the wrong reasons probably.’
It’s impossible to overstate how high the barrier can be in the couple’s own minds because of their felt ‘hypocrisy’. Now of course, into this lack of qualification and fear of rejection the Church of England has good news to bring. Because we are the Church of England the good news, made even better by the Marriage Measure of 2008, is that we marry people, and so there are churches in England for people to marry in. They do not have to be churchgoers, nor baptised, nor anything else.
The feeling among the marrying generation that they are being hypocritical is the number one myth that the Church of England has to explode. Because of this fact, it works less and less well if we
