THE Church of England began an assertive campaign yesterday to sell the benefits of a Christian marriage by taking its first stand at the National Wedding Show.

Ten yards from a lurid stall where a group of muscular male strippers promoted the Men Corps revue, clergy handed out plastic goody bags and offered practical and spiritual advice to prospective brides and grooms.

More than 16,000 people are expected to visit the exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham, which ends tomorrow. The Church hopes that its slickly-branded stand, with the purple insignia of the Church matching the lilac theme of surrounding commercial wedding exhibits, will help to reverse the steep decline in traditional church weddings.

With growing competition from civil ceremonies held in stately homes or football stadiums, the number of Church of England marriages has dropped by 40 per cent during the past decade to 60,000 a year, just one in four of all weddings.

Over the strains of Justin Timberlake, the Bishop of Leicester, the Right Rev Tim Stevens, defended the Church’s presence at the avowedly commercial event, where companies sell every imaginable kind of wedding paraphernalia from bridal dresses to stag weekends.

He said: “The Church stands at the heart of communities. It exists for the benefit of communities and it is absolutely right that it should be here now.

“This is not just a commodity with your wedding but it is something that goes on for the rest of your life, which I suspect is more than most of the stalls here offer the customers.”

The church stand is sponsored by the insurance firm Ecclesiastical, which specialises in church cover and is offering wedding insurance from the stall. Church volunteers said there had been an enthusiastic response from young women, their mothers and, occasionally, their husbands-to-be.

The Church’s unique selling point, according to Bishop Stevens, is offering “preparation not just for the wedding day but also preparation for married life”.

Clergymen were also on hand to point out the competitive pricing of a church wedding, which can cost as little as £170 for a basic church service, rising to more than £600 for an extravagant affair with choir and organist.

The Rev Jeremy Trigg, one of the church advisers, said: “We believe community marriage is good and positive and it is something that we want to market. We want to put it in front of people and say ‘Here, try it’. We want to make it easier for people. We want to be able to answer questions about getting married in church and we want to open doors for them.”

As heads turned to watch models in bridal dresses stride down the catwalk opposite, Sue Burridge, who helped to set up the Church of England’s stand, said: “I’ve been surprised how many people have come up. Most people are having church weddings, although we’ve had a few saying their vicar wouldn’t let them get married in church because they are divorced, so we’ve had a little chat about that.”

Visiting the stall before choosing a frock coat, Gordon Hollyhead, 24, and Laura Head, 23, are planning a church wedding. Ms Head said: “When I went to look at commercial venues, they told me they were booked out for two years in advance. But I was really surprised when I went to my local church and they said they only get four weddings a year. It is a beautiful old building.”

Despite not being regular churchgoers, they found the local vicar “quite relaxed” and have now booked the church for next September. As part of the package, they must attend marriage classes beforehand.

The regulations governing marriages in churches are to be reformed by 2006 to enable “church” weddings with traditional vows to be held in alternative venues to the local place of worship.

Bishop Stevens said: “The Church has always been available for weddings for anybody from the community or who worships locally. Now we have couples moving so much that ties to their communities are getting looser and resident qualification is no longer so appropriate.

“So the Church is revising the regulations so it attaches to the celebrant (the clergy holding the ceremony), not the church.”

'We'll give you the wedding you want'

JENNY HEYES is confident about her coming marriage to her boyfriend of three years, Innes Grant, but more doubtful about God.

With one week to go, The Times dragged her to the church stall at the National Wedding Show, away from arrangements for her church wedding in Tonbridge, Kent.

“The first thing I’d say is we are not ogres,” the Rev Jeremy Trigg told Jenny, 29, who attended her vicar’s preparation classes with Innes, 30. “The second is that this is your wedding. We give you the wedding you want, not the wedding your parents want.”

The Bishop of Leicester, the Right Rev Tim Stevens, was not alarmed that Jenny, the foreign desk assistant on The Times, had just moved in to live with her boyfriend and was not a regular churchgoer.

He seemed relieved to hear of her positive experiences in Tonbridge. At one stage she was told that, for a church wedding, she must live at home for 15 days, but this was smoothed over with the vicar.

“What about God in all this?” Bishop Stevens asked. “You were brought up as a Christian so getting married in a church feels quite natural. Is that because it is a friendly place or does getting married in a church offer some meaning that is different?” “I think God does matter,” Jenny replied. “I haven’t made any big decisions yet about God but I’m very open.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Everyone will get vaccine against swine flu
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes