A church wedding is a beautiful and loving way to be married. Declaring your love and committment to each other, surrounded by your family and friends, whilst held in the love of God, is a very special start to your marriage.

To arrange a wedding at The Priory, please e-mail or phone the Team office on 01568 612124 between 9.30am and 12.30pm Monday to Thursday for a chat.

Some Frequently Asked Questions about church weddings:

Banns

Banns are a way of making a public announcement that you are going to get married. They are read out at our main Sunday Service in church for three weeks in case anyone wants to object to the marriage on legal grounds. Don't worry — that's very rare! They are required by law.

One of us lives away...

If one of you lives somewhere else (say in London) you must have the banns read there as well as in Leominster. Your local vicar will give you a certificate to show that this has been done. You need to contact the Vicar to arrange for this to happen, but we can help you to do this if required.

Neither of us lives here...

Everyone has the legal right to be married in their own Parish Church or where you have a suitable family connection. In other cases, you may be able to obtain permission from the Archbishop of Canterbury; a special licence is required, and a fee is payable. The clergy will be pleased to talk you through the options and details.

One of us is divorced...

If one or both of you have been married before (and your former spouse is still living), it is generally still possible to get married in church. You will need to talk to one of our clergy about your particular circumstances, who will then check with the national bishops’ guidelines.

One of us is Roman Catholic...

From our point of view, this presents no problems. However, one or two things are worth mentioning. First of all, you may wish to check that the Catholic part of your family have no objection to you marrying in an Anglican church. If you wish the Roman Catholic Church to recognise your marriage, you can apply for special permission and talk to your Roman Catholic Priest about the implications of such a “mixed marriage”. If he is satisfied that the faith of the Catholic partner will be safeguarded, he will recommend that the (RC) Bishop grant a "Dispensation from Canonical Form". He may be willing to assist or be present at the service. If you don't feel any of this matters, and that you just want an ordinary Church of England service, that's fine.

Marriage Preparation Day

The wedding is just one day - the marriage is for a lifetime. To help you prepare for this, we arrange an informal Marriage Preparation Day for couples marrying in our churches. This will usually be held on a Saturday and last from 10.00 am to 2.30 pm. A light lunch is provided. The day provides the opportunity to talk about the meaning of the Wedding ceremony and the idea of Christian marriage. At the Marriage Preparation we also outline your choice of forms of ceremony and the hymns, readings and prayers you can choose to make your ceremony special to you. 

We will provide you with resources and help to make your choices, but there are also some excellent materials available online for Church of England weddings you will find some useful information at www.yourchurchwedding.org.

You will also have the opportunity to meet with the member of our clergy team who will be marrying you. Together, you can finalise the details that go to make up the ceremony and you will have the opportunity for a rehearsal in church before the wedding day itself.

When do we need to book?

There’s no limit, but we often book weddings about 12 months before they take place. Of course, at busy times of year it may need to be longer to be sure of getting the date you prefer.

Once you have booked in to our system, we will then invite you to one of the Wedding Preparation Days. Don’t worry if you can’t make the first date we offer - we run a number during the year and you may well be able to make it to one of the others.

We are still in the process of campaigning to change the rules so that Church of England churches can be allowed to carry out weddings for same-sex couples. In the meantime we can have a "Service of Prayer and Thanksgiving" for your civil partnership or marriage that has been conducted elsewhere - we'd love to talk to you about what that could look like.  We very much look forward to the time when the rules will allow us to conduct weddings for same sex couples.