Interest in church weddings increases by 50%; Award for campaigner who highlighted Church’s unenvironmentally friendly investments; Bishop of Manchester announces retirement
Interest in church weddings increases by 50%
More couples have felt inspired to explore the option of a church wedding. Unique visits to the Church of England’s ‘one-stop’ weddings website www.yourchurchwedding.org increased by nearly 50 per cent in 2011, to 410,044 (up from 273,746 unique visits in 2010).
This rise in interest, which follows a change in the law in 2008 to make it easier to marry in church, has also been seen at the Church of England stand at wedding shows around the country, with a noticeable increase in couples visiting the stand to ask questions about church weddings in 2011 compared to 2010.
The Revd Rosie Harper, who is part of the church weddings team, said: “Church of England weddings increased by four per cent in 2010 and it’s great to see more couples wanting to find out all about marrying in church. We’d love to be a part of their big day, so we’d encourage everyone to come and talk to us.”
One couple married by Rosie and featured in the Your Church Wedding video said: “We weren’t sure as to whether it was appropriate that we would be to be allowed to be married in church and we were delighted to find that it wasn’t going to be a problem, and that our local vicar was very happy, in fact insisted on marrying us.”
Staffed by friendly and knowledgeable vicars who love conducting weddings, the Church of England stand will be meeting couples, and answering all of their church wedding questions, at seven wedding shows this autumn
Award for campaigner who highlighted Church’s unenvironmentally friendly investments
Ekklesia – A campaigner has won an award for her work in highlighting the environmentally unfriendly companies that the Church of England invests in. Siobhan Grimes founded , which has been calling on the Church of England to divest from the oil industry and …
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17061
Bishop of Manchester announces retirement
Rochdale OnlineThe Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, has announced that he is to retire after more than a decade serving Greater Manchester and Rossendale, and 27 years as a Church of England Bishop. The Bishop’s final formal thanksgiving service …
http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/73437/bishop-of-manchester-announces-retirement