Baptisms, Weddings & Funerals
This section provides information on how the Scottish Episcopal Church can assist with life’s transitional events: Christenings, Weddings, and Funerals.
Getting married in Church
There are over 300 Scottish Episcopal Churches in Scotland to choose from if you are planning to get married.
The first thing you need to do is get in touch with the priest who is in charge of the church that you are interested in getting married in.
Once you’ve made contact, you’ll be able to have a conversation about what kind of wedding you are looking for and also about the local booking arrangements.
If you can, try not to book a wedding reception venue until you know whether the church you want to get married in is available.
People sometimes ask whether they can get married in church if they have been married before. The short answer is that a proportion of the people who get married in the Scottish Episcopal Church have been married before.
Local clergy are able to marry couples where one or both have been married before provided the bishop consents. Your local priest will be very happy to speak about this.
Some Scottish Episcopal clergy are able to conduct marriages of same-sex couples, and some are not nominated to do so. If you are same-sex couple seeking to be married in a Scottish Episcopal Church, please contact your local church for advice.
Weddings in the Scottish Episcopal Church tend not to be just done off the peg but are tailored to the couple who are getting married. For example, if the couple are parents, there may well be creative ways of involving the children on the big day.
The couple themselves should expect to have a significant involvement in planning the service, including choosing which prayers, readings and vows are used.
The service itself will tend to be put together by the couple using resources from the Scottish Episcopal Church’s marriage rite.
No-one can get married in Scotland without dealing with the local Registrar. On the day of the wedding a couple need to produce a Marriage Schedule from the Registrar Service which is run by the local council.
During the course of the service, the schedule is completed by the person conducting the wedding and this then needs to be returned to the Registrar’s Office within three days.
Having my child christened
Local clergy are always happy to discuss christenings which can take place at any age but are most commonly performed for small children.
Many churches use the word “baptism” to describe the christening ceremony. That’s because the service recalls the baptism of Jesus who himself was plunged into the waters of the River Jordan by his cousin John the Baptist at the start of the years when he began to teach.
The service will usually take place as part of the regular worship of the church so may well be on a Sunday morning.
The Scottish Episcopal Church won’t baptise anyone who has previously been baptised in another tradition so long as the person was baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit using water.
Baptism is held in common by many of the Christian denominations and so a baptism in the Scottish Episcopal Church is regarded as equivalent to baptism in many other traditions.
If you are finding a way into the church from another background your local priest will advise on different ways to mark this if you want to do so publicly.
View the liturgy for baptism.
Arranging a funeral
There are generally two points of contact when arranging a funeral – the undertaker (who may prefer to be thought of as a “funeral director” these days) and the priest or lay reader from the church who is going to be conducting the service itself.
A funeral should be arranged in a way that ensure that those who will be attending are not rushed or anxious.
It is important that either the person arranging the funeral (who will generally be a friend or family member of the person who has died) checks that the church and the person conducting the service are available before agreeing a time with the undertaker.
If someone was a regular worshipper in a Scottish Episcopal Church, it is entirely appropriate that their funeral service may take the form of a communion service.
Many clergy of the Scottish Episcopal Church would strongly encourage those arranging funerals to hold the main part of the funeral service in the peace and dignity of the local church building rather than a Funeral Director’s parlour or a crematorium.
Those in the church who conduct funerals, generally clergy or lay readers, will be able to offer advice on the content of the service itself using resources drawn from the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Funeral Rite.
The easiest funerals to arrange are for those who have made some preparations for their own funeral before they have died.
Local clergy are generally willing to help people to plan ahead and are sometimes used as a resource by those who would like to think about their own funeral whilst they are fit and well.
