Non-catholic wedding / blessing

growler

Hi

I'm getting married in cork registry office in Jan, being a total agnostic and suffering from an allergy to religious buildings + having a wife-to-be of hindu origin i thought we could escape the whole god stuff.

however as the registry office can only hold 17 people of more than 13stone weight, she now wants a "blessing" type wedding ceremony at the hotel for those guests who can't get to the registry office! (with me so far?)

Can anyone suggest who i could get to do such a thing? I believe the COI folk are reasonably cool about such things? I've had a google for the humanist options but it seems to turn up a lot of weirdos!

any suggestions / help would be most appreciated.

thanks

Nevyn

Well is there not someone of her own faith that can do this ?

Alun

As for the humanist option, is there an Irish equivalent of the BHA (British Humanist Association)? From their website (http://www.humanism.org.uk) there's a Belfast group/association, so might be worth contacting them to see if there's an equivalent here.

I've no experience with them in a wedding context, but my father recently had a humanist funeral in the UK, and I was very impressed with the guy (from the BHA) who did that.

drunk_monk

From November the civil wedding laws are being changed. One major change is that you can now have civil weddings in locations other than the registerar office (subject to inspection from HSE). Heres more info on it:

http://www.irishweddings.ie/index.html?module=products&showcat=57&showproduct=737

growler

saw that, however my local registry office isn't being very helpful on that front, the local registrar is booked up doing the registry office "ceremonies" and so can't go anywhere else for the day... in fact unless tehy draft in a few more the upshot of this law change is that a civil marriage is going to be less available to the public albeit they could in theory get married elsewhere.. nor are the hotel willing to request and pay for a HSE visit and i'm certainly not paying for them to do it.

drunk_monk

yeah I was worried that in reality it will be hard to organise. My gf and I are planning to get married next year so hopefully things will be easier by then.

growler

hi,

just a quick update, we got in touch with the humanist organisation in ireland, got a "rent a priest" from them i.e. celebrant, and he was very good, had a good ceremony and everyone in attendance was really happy with the more personal vows and speed of everything,

so if you do want to avoid an hour of uncoordinated standing / sitting / kneeling and assorted waffle I'd highly recommend this option.

bensoneb

Hi Growler,

Did the humanist ceremony cover the civil end of things as well?

Thanks.

growler

no, still had to do the registry office bit too.