Weddings, baptisms and funerals
The three occasions most people come to a church for, and the three we are asked about most by people who have never been to a service here.
Weddings
You do not have to be a churchgoer
If you live in the parish, or you were baptised here, or you can show a real connection to this town, you have a legal right to be married in this church. Most couples we marry are not part of the congregation and that has never mattered to anyone here.
Ring the office before you book anything else. Dates go a long way ahead, and the conversation is short and free.
Start with a questionBaptisms and thanksgivings
Two different things, and plenty of families choose the second.
Baptism
Usually within a Sunday morning service, so the church is actually there — which is rather the point of it. No charge, ever. Godparents should be baptised themselves; everything else is flexible.
Thanksgiving
A short service of thanks for a child's birth, with no promises made on anyone's behalf. For families who want to mark it without signing up to something they are not sure about. Also free.
Adult baptism
Less unusual than people assume — we do several a year. There is a conversation first, over as many coffees as it takes, and no timetable.
Funerals
Anybody who lives in this parish may have their funeral here, whether or not they ever came through the door, and whatever they believed. There is no charge for the church or for the minister.
Your funeral director will usually make the arrangements, but you do not have to go through one to talk to us. If you are reading this because someone has just died: ring the office number below, and if it is out of hours it diverts to a mobile that somebody answers.
We also keep a book of remembrance and hold a service for the bereaved on the first Sunday of November each year, open to anyone in the town regardless of where the funeral was held.