Putting together an Order of Service for your Wedding

Getting married for the first time, or even arranging a wedding for a son or daughter when it's years since you remember organising your own can be quite daunting, and one of the questions we are frequently asked is - What should be put into an Order of Service - what's essential and what's not. Below we have provided a sample of an Order of Service with all the elements that are usually contained within a Service. Some elements, quite clearly, are essential, like the Wedding Vows but many of the others are optional and the easiest way to organise things is to think through some ideas of what you would like to have in your Wedding Service and then discuss this with your priest or vicar, so that everyone is happy with the result. The service can be very formal with a full High Church service or a Roman Catholic Nuptial Mass but we have reproduced here is the most common forms of service and identified what would normally be printed in the Order of Service

Entrance of the Bride - usually accompanied by a piece of music. This is commonly printed as: Entrance - followed by the name of the piece of music and the composer, e.g.

• Entrance         Canon in D major     Pachelbel
• Welcome and Introduction - by the celebrant
• Hymn - it is normal to print the full text of all hymns (all verses that are to be sung) - this ensures that the guests are not scrabbling through their orders of service and hymn books for the words, but have everything to hand

Readings - one or two readings are usual. It is normal to print the source of the reading and sometimes the reader - for instance The Gospel according to St Mark Chapter 10 verses 6 - 9 would be printed as:

• Mark 10. vv 6-9           Mr. Stephen Downer
• Sermon
• Exchange of Marriage Vows
• Prayers
• Hymn

The signing of the register is usually accompanied by a musical peice as the Bride and Groom together with the witnesses often go to another room for this part of the service. The music is identified in the same way as the entrance music

• The Signing of the register      Pavane      Fauré
• The Final Blessing
• Exit            Wedding March          Mendelssohn