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Three-quarters of nearly 1800 visitors to the National Wedding Show at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre and at Earl’s Court, London, told researchers: “We wanted a ‘proper’ wedding.”
Sixty-nine per cent rated the location as important, and 60 per cent said that the church had a particular meaning for them. Next came their own or partner’s religion (56 per cent), the spiritual or sacred ambience (55 per cent), and the “vicar” (53 per cent). The choir, music, and bell-ringing rated 49 per cent; the interior and decoration, 47 per cent. Marriage preparation was important to only 36 per cent. Forty-seven per cent were keen to “personalise” the ceremony.
The Revd Andrew Body, Vicar of Chobham, in Surrey, who chairs Family Life and Marriage Education (FLAME), takes 20 weddings a year. He said that the results confirmed: “We have a very good product.”
“Research shows a lot of couples are looking for something which is spiritual, and not just a pretty lych-gate,” he said on Tuesday. “People want it to be done well. They don’t particularly like over-trendy things, because it is an important time.”
In the latest church statistics (2003), 31 per cent of first marriages took place in church. Four out of ten weddings planned by people attending the Wedding Show were church weddings, according to the research carried out by the Henley Centre HeadlightVision.
Mr Body’s book Making the Most of Weddings is due out next month (CHP, £6.99; 978-07151-41250).
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