Anyone Had A Church Wedding Recently?

I'm looking into a church wedding, but I was just wondering what costs are involved? I know about the reading of the Banns, but was wondering what else there is, and any estimated costs that these might be.

Thanks for any help.

xx

 

Mine was a church wedding, and they can be expensive and also quite cheap, and it also depends on what time of year you get married. Our church, for example charge a small fee for heating as its a big, old church, if its in the cold season (being June it didn't affect us).

You have to pay £34 for banns to be read at your parish church as well as at the church you're getting married in. If the church you're getting married in is your parish church then you don't pay another £34, its £34 per church (most couples live together before they get married these days so usually there's two lots of £34).

I think for the necessities (no choir or church bells) its around £250-£300, which includes marriage certificate. I recommend having a second copy of your marriage certificate in case you need to send the original off, which if you purchase it for on the day of the wedding its only £4, it does cost more if you do it later on. Bear in mind too that churches have to charge for use of video, but its about £30, so small costs.

Weddings can go up to about £800-£900 though when you add extras (not the standard Church of England fees, which are the same across England). We paid about £254 to our church, but didn't have the church bells (that would have been another £180 or so) and we did get the choir for free as we were members of the choir anyway so they did it as their gift to us (otherwise it would be another £65-£75). We paid for the organist (about £70), the £30 copyright for the video, £4 extra for the extra copy of the marriage certificate, then the basics (church fees, clergy fees, banns, marriage certificate, verger fees I think too). I think for civil ceremonies its around £250 so it can be the same sort of price range. It does depend on what you have though. Just remember the compulsory things that the Church of England set is the same across England but extras provide by the individual church they can charge what they like (choir, bells, heating, etc).

Hope that helps a bit. I know its a little vague!
xx

 

That helps a lot, thanks! I had seen that heating, choir and other things like that were on top but was trying to work out a rough estimate as to what it would cost and the difference in cost from a church wedding to a registry office. Will talk to my H2B about the costs as see what he says. Probably wouldn't have the bells or choir, but organist sounds good.

I've seen a table on the Church Of England website for the costs from 2014 which says the £34 for the banns, £4 certificate and it says £392 for the marriage ceremony which would make it around £430. Is the church hire extra?

Thanks a lot for your help.
xx

 

There's not normally a charge for church hire, unless you had use of the church hall for anything like a party or whatever. We paid for some of ours I think before the prices went up. I'd bank on no cheaper than around £250-£300 and no more expensive than around £500. and add any extras you'd choose on top of that.

xx

 

Thanks a lot for your help. Will definitely get all this looked into
Hopefully, we can get married and have more than what we were expecting.

xx

 

To me, I'd always grown up knowing weddings to be in a church. I think I've been to 3 non-church weddings, and I've attended a few weddings in my time! This is not to say I disagree in non-church weddings at all, this is just based on what weddings I've attended, but I know people who have rarely gone to registry office and hotel weddings, and spoke to someone the other week that had never been to a church wedding. People don't always go to church weddings thinking they are too expensive, but you can have a church wedding for around the same price as a registry office. Hotels tend to do deals for whole wedding packages, that's what my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had (although, be aware, they may say includes everything except maybe cars and dress, or whatever, but its very easy to say I need more guests in the day so will pay the extra £40 per head for a sit down meal, or whatever, and then I need an extra so many people on top of that in the evening so will pay an extra £20 per head for those, and before you know it the price has sky rocketed).

We go to church so not getting married in church would have been wrong to us. Its not for everyone though. I think as well, although before going to church I thought it didn't matter where I got married, after attending more church weddings than non-church weddings I always felt that church weddings were almost like a tradition and we wanted to keep tradition as much as we could and liked. If you're not religious or not from a religious background its understandable not to want to get married in a church as it may feel uncomfortable to yourselves. Horses for courses as they say.

xx

 

Shop around and don't be afraid to haggle! We didn't have a church wedding as although we both come from fairly religious backgrounds neither of us attend church or are particularly believers so it seemed hypercritical to us to have a church wedding. Also investigate hotels that don't offer 'deals' as you may find that the price is not what you expected, we had a small wedding in a spot we love and it came to a lot less than we expected! If your chosen venue (in terms of hotels) offer a deal that doesn't meet your requirements, ask about pricing off deal.

By shopping around and getting quotes for both you can decide what wedding you want - that is the most important thing in all of this and try not to lose sight of that - Do what the two of you want!

 

Well said IPrincess!

Not sure of exact costings but my Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law had a package thing at a hotel. It included everything except cars and Bridesmaids' dresses I think. It was a total of £8000 something. They wanted other things on top, more guests (both sides of the family had loads of people in them), etc, and the wedding came to around £18,000 in the end! To be honest it wasn't very nice either in my opinion, even the service seemed very much like applying for planning permission for an extension on a house- except for 2 readings and one of the Best Men playing the trumpet there was nothing special in the ceremony and didn't feel like it was a unique service. The readings and trumpet playing were lovely touches though. The manager was dressed in jeans and shirt, which for a hotel wedding he was overseeing I thought was wrong, and the staff were rude. The wedding was a week before Christmas day and it snowed a little on the evening so it was cold, and for the evening we sat down and the room was cold. There were a lot of old people in there too and it needed a little heating just until everyone was in and the DJ was going before it was warmed by body heat, electrics, etc, so I went to the bar and asked if they'd mind just popping some heating on for a short while. An hour or so later it was getting too warm and they hadn't turned it off, so Chris went over and asked them to knock it off now, and the reply he had back was something like some stupid woman came over saying it was too cold and asked us to put it on! Chris soon stood up and said that was my fiancé! He soon shut up and turned it off. It didn't seem very well organised, but things were perfect for the Bride and Groom so I suppose that's all that mattered. We found out afterwards that a child on my Sister-in-law's side of the family was wondering around on their own and told the manager she wanted some ice cream, so he took the child into the kitchen and got them some ice cream. Now, ok, this was a nice thing for him to do for the child, and I'm sure it was done out of kindness, but if I was a parent and I knew someone took my child off to get ice cream without telling me, alarm bells would be ringing, especially not knowing where they were and at a young age. Mind you, I wouldn't let them run off in the first place in a reception venue at a young age either, and whether the parents were watching them at all times I don't know so wrong to comment really, but the whole manager of a hotel taking a child off for ice cream would really set alarm bells off to me. All this is from a guests' point of view though, but thought it may help.

You can get a lot for your money, read reviews, know your budget, know what you want, and do what you and Rob want, that's the important thing.

xx

 

I use to ring the bells for weddings in my local church, we charged £20, the church had half and I had half for ringing them. We only had three bells, so one person could easily ring them

 

We have to have special bell ringers in for our church and they charge something like £165 for a wedding. We didn't bother with them and said it was another expense we didn't really need

xx

 

Thank you all for your help. All the other costs that could be included, like bells and organist etc, just never came to mind when I was jotting notes down. I'd love a church wedding. I now my H2B would be up for it, especially the church his parents got married in. Keep my fingers crossed.
Really appreciate your help!

xx

 

You can get married in any church you like, just need to pay your local parish church £34 for banns to be read as its outside the church you are marrying in (you still have to pay the church you are marrying in £34 to have your banns read there as well), unless your local parish church is the one you are marrying in then you don't pay the extra £34. The church we go to is not our local one, so we had to pay our local one too, so we went to hear the banns being read there as well as at our church (our vicar read ours out three weeks, then the next three weeks were at our local church so we were lucky enough to be able to attend to hear them being read).

xx