Baptisms and Weddings
We are happy to welcome you through a Baptism or Wedding. However, both of these take a lot of planning (for us as well as you!). So it is useful for us to begin a conversation about this as far in advance as possible, preferably with at least three months notice. Here is some basic information that may be helpful for you at an early stage…
Baptisms
All of our Baptisms take place at 12.30pm, normally on the 3rd Sunday of the month. Sadly, we are not able to accommodate any requests for private baptisms outside of these services, or for baptisms on any other Sunday of the month.
We have lots of Baptism requests – and we get booked up very quickly. We are also working through many baptisms canceled as a result of the Covid lockdowns, so the waiting time is considerably longer than usual at the current time. We apologise for this. It would be normal for us to be able to offer you a date three months after your first contact.
To qualify for Baptism, you must live within the parish boundaries of St. Andrew’s. By Church Law, we can only baptise people from outside of the boundaries who a) have a qualifying connection with St. Andrew’s (e.g. family live here etc) and b) have gained written permission from the priest of the Parish Church where they currently live.
Baptisms are carried out free of charge.
If the person to be baptised is a child, you will need to have at least 3 Godparents who can make promises, with the parent/s, on behalf of the child. If you are struggling to find 3 Godparents, please remember that one or both parents can also be the Godparents, providing you have at least one other Godparent.
To book a baptism, please complete the form that you can download here and return it to Rev Dr Steve Griffiths via email to steve.griffiths@london.anglican.org. N.B. Completing the form does not guarantee your Baptism Booking. It is an enquiry form only. You will need to have your Baptism date confirmed by Rev Dr Steve after the form is received.
Dates available for 2024:
Generally speaking, baptism services are held on the 3rd Sunday of the month (except in August and December and sometimes April, depending on when Easter falls). These are the available dates for 2024:
15 September – 2 baptisms available
20 October – 1 baptism available
Weddings & Blessings
There are certain legal qualifications that must be abided by if you want to be married at St. Andrew’s. You can find out what these are (and just about everything else you need to know about booking a church wedding!) from the really brilliant Church of England wedding website.
At St. Andrew’s, we do not have any objection in principle to marrying divorcees. However, each application must be considered individually and an appropriate decision made.
If you are not a British National, there is an extra layer of paperwork that would need to be gone through. Please leave plenty of time for those conversations to happen with us so that any paperwork can be processed with the Registry Office in time.
The cost of a wedding varies as to what you want to have at the service. However, if you were to have a ceremony with an organist and bellringers, you could expect to pay approximately £750 (a detailed breakdown of costs is available on request).
At St. Andrew’s, we do not currently offer services for the blessing of same-sex marriages. If you wish to find a local church for that, please do contact the Area Dean, Father Stephen Gallagher, via stephengallag58@icloud.com