Weddings at St Stephens Belrose.

Congratulations on your engagement!

We’re confident that we can provide you with not only a fantastic wedding day but also, and more importantly, a solid foundation for your married life.
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We at St Stephen’s are committed to upholding marriage as the best lifestyle choice for couples. If you are looking for a church wedding where you turn up on The Day and that’s it, then St Stephen's perhaps is not the church for you.

Our commitment to marriage drives us to require that all our engaged couples undertake a relationship coaching course prior to their wedding, and our experience of preparing couples for marriage tells us that our marriage preparation program gives the best results for couples.

Following your Marriage Preparation, your minister will meet with you to help you both think through the vows and promises that you will make on your wedding day. This will help you to better understand marriage and ensure that your wedding won’t be an empty religious ceremony, but rather, you both will feel the weight of your promises as you make them. This will make your wedding a far more profound and memorable moment in your life together. These meetings also provide opportunity to tailor your wedding to meet your dreams!

The Fine Print
i. Securing your booking
If you would like to explore getting married at St Stephen's, we ask that you come to one of our Sunday services (8am, 10am or 5:30pm) to see the layout of our church and to get to know one of the ministry team over morning tea or supper after church. We can then confirm your wedding booking, and map out a wedding preparation timetable that will ensure that you both will be completely prepared for your wedding and that nothing will go wrong.

“Nothing will go wrong, but if it does, we will fix it.”

ii. Other Requirements
We love bubbles, but not rice, confetti or flower petals.

Finally, we want you both make a point of regularly attending Sunday church services at St Stephen's prior to your wedding. We ask this for 2 reasons;

1. you will have a chance to get comfortable with the minister who will marry you and the style of service that he conducts, and
2. we know you love each other, that’s why you’re getting married. The best way to succeed at anything in life is to aim to achieve it at the highest level. The highest, best and purest form of love that we know is God’s love for us. The Bible says that God loved us so much that he let his only son die in our place so that our sins might be dealt with so we might be brought back into a right relationship with God. We explain this love of God for us at our Sunday meetings. 

“This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to take away our sins.” (The Bible.)

Divorced?
If you are divorced, you can still get married at St Stephen's. An additional appointment will need to be made with your minister as their licence to marry a divorcee requires an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the failure of the previous marriage(s), and to seek approval from our local bishop to marry that person. Whilst this is usually a formality, it should not be presumed upon, and so time will need to be made available to work this issue through.
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We look forward to seeing you and your fiancé at one of our Sunday services