General Chat

The bride's father can walk with her only if they live in the same house. Likewise bridesmaids, they would need to be 2 meters apart (in the UK) unless they lived with the bride.

We got married in 1960, my dad walked me down the aisle and I think it was referred to as giving away in those days, we paid for our own wedding as my parents couldn’t afford it and I didn’t say obey either it was in a Baptist church.

I got married in a Ukrainian Catholic Church and the tradition there was for both the Groom and the Bride's father (in this particular case OH's godfather, as her father was deceased) to walk the Bride to the Altar.

All my family must have thought that I had done a runner as I had to await for OH's arrival outside the church :-D

To this day I have no idea what OH promised, or what vows she took, as her part of the ceremony, questions, responses and the like were all done in Ukrainian, whilst mine were in English ;-)

The Registrar seemed happy enough however and issued the Marriage Certificate :-D :-D

I paid for the reception and the cars, OH bought her dress and the bridesmaid dress. It wasn't a big wedding by today's standards on OH's mum was not flush with money

We married n 1967, and the vicar asked if if I just wanted to say "love and honour" or did I want to say "obey"

I said I'd promise to love and honour only ;-)

Another puzzle is, if all those people can socialise for hours in pubs and outside pubs, why are wedding guests limited to 30 which can only be from two families?

I'm guessing a lot of rule flouting was going on with drinkers Ann - and a blind eye turned.

yes I am sure Island but surely that was to be expected but why say 30 guests and only from 2 families. Does that mean Aunty Flo from Northern England or Leicester) can go to little Jimmy's wedding in Cornwall or does it mean those people all have to come from two houses. Saying two separate families is strange and surely say five family people from one house are not less likely than five non family members to have the virus?

Here is a quote from BBC News about weddings in England. If I understand it correctly, the 30 guests can be anyone but the reception is a lot more restricted.

Venues can only reopen if they can do so safely

Ceremonies should be kept as short as possible

No food or drink should be consumed unless it is essential for the ceremony

Group singing and playing of instruments should be avoided

A maximum of 30 people should attend ceremonies, and only where there is space to socially distance. This includes all guests, the officiant and any staff not employed by the venue, like a photographer

Social distancing of at least one metre between different households should be practised at all times

It is ''strongly advised'' that receptions do not take place afterwards, with only small celebrations of six people outside or two households inside taking place

The venue should keep a temporary record of visitors for 21 days, in case they need to be traced

I don't think it's been very well thought out at all!

"no food or drink"? but pubs are open!

The Church of Scotland no longer has obey in the marriage vows.

I Tawny now take thee Mr Owl to be my husband.
In the presence of god and before these witnesses
I promise to be a loving, faithful and loyal wife to you
until god shall separate us by death.

The men repeat the same vows. We also have the option to affirm where by the minister will say the whole thing in the form of a question and you simply answer I do.

I don’t know when weddings will be allowed to start in Scotland again but like the rest of the UK they will be socially distanced and without any reception.

The instruction from the CofE is that Churches are limited in the number they can currently take, so for instance my Church can normally seat at least 250, but with 2m distancing, we can seat minimum 26 (that would be individuals) up to 52, which would include couples or families.

So for a wedding or funeral, there are limits anyway. The 30 attendees would probably be in a number of 'bubbles', so we should be able to accommodate the full 30.

Ann .........
the huge numbers congregating inside and outside pubs, on beaches erc erc was totally illegal, but the police had to ignore it if I understand correctly, as long as there was no unruliness, fights or weapons waved around.

Then they had to take their lives in their hands and try to calm things down.

Can you imagine what would have happened if police had tried to stop all those people out in the streets drinking in London?

There would have murder done .............. of the police, and rioting for days.


The opening was truly badly done.

Blame the powers-that-be.