Which Church?
Our Parish is made up of three Church of England Churches: St. John the Baptist, Clayton; St. Cosmas & St. Damian, Keymer and St. Francis of Assisi, Hassocks. You can choose to marry in any of these churches.
Does it matter where we live?
If one or both of you lives in our parish, then you have the legal right to marry in one of our three churches. This is applicable as long as you are both unmarried or are a widow. You can use your postcode to check which parish you live in here https://www.achurchnearyou.com/
Neither of you lives in the parish: entitlement to marry also extends to those with another ‘Qualifying Connection’ – for example, if you have previously lived here for at least 6 months, your parents live here or have lived here during your lifetime or you were baptised here.
If none of these apply to you then it may still be possible for you to get married here, provided that at least one comes regularly (at least twice a month) to services for at least 6 months. While we are willing to take bookings during this 6 month period, you must realise that the booking is conditional on fulfilling these requirements.
To see full details of all these Qualifying Connections visit the Church of England’s Wedding Ceremony Planner
What if one or both of us is divorced?
Parish clergy have much more discretion than in the past concerning the conducting of marriages for those who are divorced. If this applies to you, and one or both of you are currently living in our parish, please get in touch so that we can meet and talk about the possibility of getting married in church.
How do you help with planning our Wedding Service?
The priest who is leading your service will meet with you to plan the wedding service (usually around 3 months before the wedding), but to help you think about what to include why not visit the Church of England’s Wedding Ceremony Planner
How do we get our Banns of Marriage read if we are marrying elsewhere?
If you are getting married in another parish and need us to read your banns, you can download an application form here.[link to a PDF}
Can you do a special celebration service if we are already married?
If you were married with a civil ceremony – perhaps in a registry office or wedding venue or maybe abroad - and would like to renew your vows in church, and ask God’s blessing on your marriage, the Church of England has a service designed specially for this, and you can read all about it here.
If you would like to give thanks for your marriage – perhaps on a significant anniversary – please speak to the Rector. This could be a whole service (rather like a wedding), in which case there are some charges, or we could simply include the key parts in one of our Sunday services close to an anniversary – in which case there would be no charge, though a donation towards the cost of the work of the church would be welcome.
Typical fees are available here https://www.yourchurchwedding.org but please contact the Rector for specific costs for your wedding plans.