Ding, dong, the bells aren’t going to chime: Religious weddings on the decline
The first bars of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus reverberate from a church organ, and the congregation turn to watch the blushing bride-to-be walks down the aisle.
For many people, there is no other way to begin a wedding, and the peal of the bells and the throaty bellow of the church organ are a key part of that traditional vision.
But religious weddings in churches and other religious venues are on the decline..
In England only a quarter of marriages were held in religious venues between 2011 and 2016.
Of those, most were in Christian churches, while non-Christian religious marriages amounted to only four per cent of the total.
Reverend James Treasure from St Thomas and St Luke in Dudley, also known as Top Church, says that the church has to shoulder some of the blame for the change in marriage .
“There has been a decline in weddings and vicars are talking about it,” he says.
“As churches we have to take some of the blame. We have failed in engaging with this generation. When people think about getting married now they don’t think about getting married in a church.”
Kanak Ghosh, from the ONS, says marriage rates as a whole remain at historical lows despite a small increase in the number of people who got married in 2016.
“Most couples are preferring to do so with a civil ceremony,” he says.
