Getting Married
The purpose of this web-page is to answer some of the many questions which we are regularly asked about getting married in Luss Parish Church. It is designed to be available for everyone so some of the questions may seem so obvious as to be almost silly to some people, while to others they may be just what they wanted to know but didn't like to ask.
However, if you do have a question which you would like to ask, do ask. The
minister will be very happy to answer your query.
First of all, who can get married in Luss Parish Church? The answer is that,
as we are a Parish Church, anyone who is normally resident within our parish
may apply to the minister to be married. Our parish is the villages of Luss,
Arden and Inverbeg and the surrounding areas. If you live in another part of
Scotland, then it is the privilege of the minister from your own parish to
conduct your wedding.
Of course, if you are a communicant member of Luss Parish Church, living out
with the parish, you may also ask our minister to conduct your wedding.
However, many other folk would like to be married in this beautiful part of
the world and we are delighted to share our Church with them, especially as
we believe that our building is quite simply the most beautiful Church for
a wedding anywhere in Scotland.
The best way of inviting our minister to conduct your wedding is to come to
a regular Sunday morning service and after the service to come across to the
Manse for coffee -- everyone in the congregation does! There you will get an
opportunity of discussing your plans with the Minister. If you wish you may
telephone the Manse in advance (01436 - 860240) to tell the minister that you
will be attending Church and would like to speak to him about a wedding. Of
course, you may not be able to get to Luss immediately and that is why an on-line
application form is included at the end of this web-page. Fill it it, send
it off and the process of planning your wedding has already begun. If he can,
the minister will normally be delighted to arrange your wedding. He will want
to be sure that you are fully aware that a Wedding Service in Luss Parish Church
is a religious service; that you will be making your promises before God; and
that you will be coming to receive God's blessing on the marriage into which
you are entering.
There is not a lot of point in doing that unless you have a faith in God and
want him to be part of your marriage. The minister will also want to be sure
that you are happy with the Church's view of marriage as the entering into
of a loving commitment for life between two people. He will not, however, expect
or require you to become a member of the Church if you are not a member, although
he will seek to establish links between you and your own local Church to ensure
that there is a congregation and a minister to whom you may turn in the future
and who will be happy to welcome you into the life of their congregation.
It is important that both people wishing to be married come to one of our services,
not least because you will want to be sure that the style of worship which
is offered here is appropriate for your special day. Marriages will not be
arranged until the minister has had the opportunity of consulting both parties.
It is also important that if you have been married before that you tell the
minister at this stage. Under present Church of Scotland regulations, depending
on the circumstances, ministers are allowed to marry people who have been divorced
subject to their own consciences. So the fact that you have been divorced will
not necessarily debar you from getting married in Luss Parish Church.
Once the minister has agreed to arrange your wedding, the first thing to be
settled on is the date. Because there are a great number of wedding requests
in our parishes, and because you will also have reception arrangements to make,
this date will often be quite a way in the future. The minister will advise
you that about three months before the date of your wedding you should make
contact with the local registrar to complete the appropriate forms which will
result in a Wedding Schedule being issued to you by the registrar in the week
of your wedding. The minister will remind you that this Wedding Schedule is
very important, and that without it no marriage can take place.
The Registrar for marriages at Luss Parish Church is:
Miss Claire Craig,
The Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths,
Scotcourt House,
45 West Princes Street,
Helensburgh G84 8BP
Telephone: 01436 658822
Full Birth Certificates will be required, together with, where applicable,
Certificate of Divorce or Certificate of Death of a former spouse. There are
fees payable to the Registrar in connection with your documentation.
All weddings in Luss Parish Church are arranged by the Parish Minister and
most will be conducted by him. On a few occasions when the minister is unavailable
a ministerial friend of Luss will conduct the service, always at the invitation
of the parish minister. The minister might, for example, be a minister living
in this area who is happy to help with wedding celebrations.
At about the time you make contact with the registrar, you will be asked to
attend a meeting with the minister who is to conduct your wedding service.
At this time the minister will discuss with you the arrangements for your marriage.
As has been said earlier on this web-page, your wedding service in Luss Parish
Church is a religious service and, as such, all of the arrangements for the
service itself are in the hands of the minister. He will, however, wish to
discuss the service with you and will normally be happy to include within the
service items which you have chosen.
In particular, he will want to be sure that the hymns used during the service
are ones with which you are familiar and, if there are hymns which have a special
meaning for you, he will be happy to include them, providing that they are
appropriate for the wedding service!
He will also be glad to know if there is particular music which you would like
to have played as you come into Church and as you leave Church. At wedding
services in Luss the organ is played by the Church Organist and, once you have
discussed the service with the minister, he will usually arrange for a meeting
with the organist to discuss any special musical requests.
Once all of the details of the wedding have been finalised, you may wish to
have an Order of Service (some people call it a Hymn Sheet) printed. It is
important that you do not do this before all of the details have been agreed
with the minister.
The minister will also arrange with you to have a wedding rehearsal before
the wedding. This rehearsal is absolutely essential and is not an optional
extra! In fact, it is on this occasion that the minister will explain to you
in detail everything that happens during the wedding service, and its significance.
It's appropriate to do this at this stage; any earlier and you may have forgotten
by the day of the wedding - and as a result of this rehearsal it is hoped that
you will be able to relax and enjoy your wedding. Normally wedding rehearsals
are scheduled for 6 p.m. on the day before the wedding - by this time most
of those who will be taking part have arrived in the area and, following the
rehearsal, you will have plenty of time left to enjoy the evening before your
wedding.
Who should come to the rehearsal? Obviously the Bride and Groom, but also the
Bride's father (if the Bride is walking down the aisle on her father's arm),
the Bridesmaids (including any children and flower-girls who need to be given
positions to stand) the Best Man, and any other people who are taking part
by, for example, reading or singing.
Not every wedding is the same but, usually, your service will start with some
words of welcome and the first hymn which you and the minister have chosen
together. This will be followed by a general introduction about marriage during
which the Church's view of marriage as part of God's plan for us will be expressed;
we will remind ourselves that Marriage is a life-long commitment of two people
to each other; that in this new relationship both partners will blossom and
grow through each other's love; that children may be born and that society
itself is strongest where marriage is honoured.
We will also remind ourselves that as this is a Christian Marriage, we believe
that God is present with us in the ceremony and that as we are starting this
marriage in prayer so we undertake to continue to share our lives with God
in prayer, to bring our children up to love God and to commit ourselves totally
to each other.
Naturally these words are followed by a prayer (the first of two prayers in
the wedding service). This prayer asks God to be with you as you make your
wedding vows.
At this point everyone in the congregation will be asked to stand, and they
will be expected to remain standing throughout the promises, the exchange of
rings and the blessing. This is because this is the central and most important
part of the wedding ceremony and, in our tradition, whenever something particularly
holy happens we stand.
The minister will ask you to join hands and to make your promises to each other.
Normally you will repeat the promise phrase by phrase after the minister.
Usually the promise is as follows:
I, Adam, take you Eve, to be my wife
and in the presence of God, and before these witnesses,
I promise and covenant to be a loving and faithful husband to you
as long as we both shall live.
I, Eve, take you Adam, to be my husband
and in the presence of God, and before these witnesses,
I promise and covenant to be a loving and faithful wife to you
as long as we both shall live.
You'll see that the promise is the same for both male and female and the minister
will point out that 'covenant' is a much-loved church word, rich in theological
meaning, for 'to make a binding agreement.'
After the promises comes the exchange of rings. You may be asked to say the
following words as you give your partner a ring:
I give you this ring in God's name,
as a symbol of all that we have promised,
and all that we shall share.
The minister may also say the traditional words:
By these signs you take each other,
to have and to hold from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and cherish,
for as long as you live.
At this point the minister will join your hands together and declare you to
be married, repeating the injunction: 'Those whom God has joined together,
no one must separate.'
The minister will now require you, as your first act together as a married
couple, to kneel to receive God's blessing. This is why you have come to be
married in Church - to make your promises before God, to share your special
day with him, and now, the very best bit of the whole service, to receive God's
blessing on your coming together as man and wife. And you kneel because it
is your way of taking part in this blessing; it isn't something which happens
over your head 'whether you like it or not' - but you seek this blessing and
consent to it by kneeling in front of the whole congregation.
The blessing will either be spoken by the minister or sung by the congregation,
after which you will stand once more and the congregation will be seated.
If there are three hymns, the second one will normally be sung at this point,
after which there will sometimes be an address and there will certainly be
a word of congratulation.
This leads on to the second part of the service which consists of the reading
of God's word and the second and final prayer. The minister will choose readings
which he feels to be appropriate for the occasion, possibly some of the beautiful
words about love written by Paul in his first letter to the Church at Corinth.
He will be happy to hear suggestions from you both about other appropriate
readings which have meaning for you and will also normally be happy to agree
to one of your friends sharing a reading in the service itself. The final prayer
is a prayer asking God to be with you throughout the adventure which you have
begun on your wedding day, asking God to be with you in the good times and
in the more difficult times which may lie ahead. It's again underlining the
idea of a three-way partnership which begins with your marriage.
Finally, everyone will sing the last hymn and the minister will invite you
and your wedding party (Best Man, Bridesmaids, possibly parents, depending
on your wishes) to gather round the table while the wedding documents are signed.
While the documents are being signed, the organist will play some appropriate
music. Some couples have a family friend whom they invite to sing at this point.
If you would like to have this in your wedding, please do discuss the matter
first with the minister and, if appropriate, with the organist. The minister
will want to agree to your request, but will want to be sure that what is proposed
is appropriate for a service of worship and a celebration of marriage.
Meanwhile, around the table, the bridegroom will have signed his normal signature,
the bride, regardless of what she has decided to call herself after her marriage,
will sign her maiden name (the name she has used for all of the years up to
this point), and the two witnesses, both of whom have been present at the service
and are over the age of sixteen, will sign their normal signatures and fill
in their full names and addresses. Normally the witnesses are either the Best
Man and Bridesmaid or two of the parents. Their signatures are important because
under Scots Law it is their witnessing the fact that you have declared your
intention to live as husband and wife that completes the marriage contract.
After a pause for a photograph, the organist will strike up the final Wedding
music, the Church bell will ring to tell the world that you are married, and
you will walk out of the Church as man and wife.
There are a number of questions which people sometimes ask about weddings in
Luss Parish Church and these will be dealt with now.
Are we allowed to have photographs taken of our wedding? Yes, the photographer
should speak to the minister about what is permitted, but providing the camera
is not intrusive and does not use flash there will not be a problem. It is good
to have pictures of the service as well as at the door and at the reception because
these will remind you of the important promises which you have made on your wedding
day.
Are we allowed to have a video of our wedding? Again yes, providing that the
sighting of the camera and the operator is unobtrusive and uses only available
light.
What about flowers for the Church on our Wedding Day? The minister is happy
for you to put flowers in the Church for your wedding. You may do this on
the evening before the wedding (often the best time for the rehearsal as
well), or you may arrange for this to be done on your behalf either on the
evening before the ceremony or on the morning of the wedding. The Beadle
will open the Church to enable this to be done. It is expected that flowers
put in Church are then left to be distributed to the elderly and sick in
the parish following the next Sunday service.
Do I have to ask the Parish Minister to arrange my wedding and must I use the
Church's organist? Wedding services at Luss Parish Church are arranged by the
Parish Minister. The Church does not hire out its building for use for weddings
by other people. If you are from out with the parish, the Parish Minister will
normally be happy to invite your own parish minister, priest or pastor to share
in the service, should that be appropriate; but the invitation will always come
from the Luss Parish Church Minister as it is his responsibility to arrange and
to conduct the weddings within his church. (Sometimes, if it is thought to be
appropriate, visiting ministers are invited to deliver an address, read the Bible
Passages and lead the prayers for the couple who are being married.) Leading
the praise within the parish church is the duty and the privilege of the Church
Organist. On occasions during the summer months it may be that your wedding falls
during a period when the organist is on holiday. If that is the case then the
Parish Minister will ensure that an appropriate deputy is provided.
Is it expected that we invite the minister to the wedding reception? Absolutely
not. The minister will not expect to be invited to your wedding reception. If
you do invite him he will, of course, be very pleased but you should understand
that with so many weddings there are many occasions when the constraints of time
and work will make it impossible for him to accept such an invitation.
And what about all of the many other questions we've got about who should do
what in Church, who should sit where, and so on? Don't worry, all of these things
will be dealt with at the appropriate rehearsal.
Most of all, enjoy the time between now and your wedding; enjoy the planning;
enjoy the preparation and make time to think of your decision to celebrate your
marriage in God's house - Luss Parish Church will also be your home. You will
be welcome to come and join us Sunday by Sunday, and you may feel that coming
to worship in Luss Parish Church before your wedding will make you feel more
at home on your big day!
Congratulations on your engagement
and good luck with all of your plans!
The next step is to complete our wedding application form and to send it to us
by e-mail using the on-line application form below. You will quickly be informed
if the date you request is available and will be invited to come to one of our
services so that you can be sure that the style of worship we offer is appropriate
for your special day.
If you are unable to come to Luss just yet, you are welcome to send your application
by post or e-mail but do understand that the Minister will not normally be able
to confirm your wedding arrangements until he has met you both in person. Due
to the Minister's obligations to his two parishes and because of the large number
of wedding requests received, it is regretted that the Minister can normally
only meet with you for this purpose on a Sunday morning following Sunday worship.
Due to the ever increasing number of people from overseas who are seeking to
get married in Luss Parish Church, the Parish Minister will be happy to conduct
the initial planning of a wedding of those from abroad by e-mail, post or even
telephone.
We have a very beautiful Church and are happy to share it with the many folk for whom Luss is a special place. We look forward to meeting you!