Getting Married at Glen Muick Parish Church

The purpose of this web page is to answer some of the many questions which we are regularly asked about getting married in Glenmuick Parish Church. It is designed, hopefully to answer some of the questions you may have.

However, if you do have a specific question, that is you have not found the answer to here on this page, the minister will be very happy to answer your query.

First of all, who can get married in Glenmuick 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 Ballater, Milton of Tullich and Dinnet 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 Glenmuick 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 one of the most beautiful Church’s 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 you will get an opportunity of discussing your plans with the Minister. If you wish you may telephone the Manse in advance (013397 56111) to tell the minister that you will be attending Church and would like to speak to him about a wedding. 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 Glenmuick 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.

Once the minister has agreed to arrange your wedding, the first thing to be settled on is the date. 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 Registration Office for marriages at Glenmuick Parish Church is:

Deeside Registration Office
Banchory Library
Bridge Street
Banchory
Aberdeenshire, AB31 5SU        
Telephone 01330 700440
Email: deeside.registrar@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

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 Glenmuick Parish Church are arranged by the Parish Minister. At about the time you make contact with the registrar, you will be asked to attend a meeting with the minister.

At this time the minister will discuss with you the arrangements for your marriage. 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.

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 Glenmuick 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, 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 Thursday 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 person giving the Bride away, 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.

This is followed by a prayer, asking God to be with you as you make your wedding vows. At this point everyone in the congregation, where able, 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. 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.

After the promises comes the exchange of rings.

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, after which you will stand once more and the congregation will be seated.

This leads on to the second part of the service. 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, 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.

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. 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 Glenmuick 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 sitting of the camera and the operator is unobtrusive and uses only available light.

How much does it cost to get married in Glenmuick Parish Church?

The current charge is £500 for the church and the current charge for the Organist is £75.

The fee of £500 which covers the cost of the, heating, lighting, cleaning and which includes a contribution to the ongoing maintenance of this beautiful village Church. Of this £500, £50 is required as a non-returnable deposit when the parish minister agrees to arrange your wedding, the remainder is due six weeks before the date of the wedding.

There will be a charge of £300 made payable to “Glenmuick Church” for the use of our minister officiating at any wedding outwith our church building, (hotels, private venues etc.) payment for this service must be made no later than one month before the date of the wedding.

Unfortunately this deposit has had to be introduced because weddings have been cancelled and right up until the day of the rehearsal we have not been told - by which time the Church has been made beautiful for the weddings and others have been denied that date). No wedding can be considered to have been 'booked' until this deposit has been received by the Church.

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, 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 Church will be opened on request to enable this to be done. It is expected that at least one flower arraignment has to be left in Church  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 Glenmuick 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 Glenmuick Parish Church Minister as it is his responsibility to arrange and to conduct the weddings within his church. 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.

Congratulations on your engagement and good luck with all of your plans!

We have a very beautiful Church and are happy to share it with the many folk for whom Glenmuick is a special place.

We look forward to meeting you!