Three of the weddings took place at St James (pictured is Elizabeth & Adam's wedding) and one of them took place in a house in St Anne's parish.
Richard and Denise's wedding was my first house wedding in 24 years of ordained ministry. It was made possible by a special license and it was a great occasion.
All the weddings have been very different, reflecting the diversity of Bermondsey as a place, but have had at their heart the central truth of the marriage service that 'this is the way of life created and hallowed by God.' The crucial truth is that marriage is not a man-made institution, but a God-ordained one.
That's why Jesus answered a question about marriage by referring to how things were in the beginning, and, by quoting Genesis 2.24 ('For the reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh')
Many of the marriage certificates of my forebears show marriages in the various churches of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. All Saints seems to occur most frequently.
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