For a church wedding in the UK you will usually need an order of service booklet. It should contains all the details for your wedding ceremony, including music, readings, and hymns. It’s useful in that it helps to guide your guests through the ceremony. And of course, it gives them those all important words so they can sing along at the appropriate times! For many guests it will also be a treasured keepsake of day. Read on for some of the most asked questions I have from my couples about their order of service booklets.
1. Do you always need an order of service booklet?
An order of service isn’t an absolute essential. You can of course use hymn books, and some churches will use a projector to display the words to the hymns. But most of the couples I work with choose to have a personalised booklet made.
2. What size is a church wedding order of service?
My most popular sizes are A5 (A4 folded in half) or dinky little pocket size A6 (about postcard size). Amazingly you can fit pretty much the same amount of detail in either size (and not with a font size so small it’s unreadable). The big bonus about the pocket size is that it fits (as the names suggests) in a pocket – or those silly little handbags we all take to weddings 🙂 You can choose whether you would like a simple card, printed both sides and folded (which gives 4 panels of content), or you add paper pages staples inside a card cover (perfect for a longer service with more content). Of course, if you’d like a different size or shape just let me know and I’ll see what we can do! My standard prices include up to 8 printed pages, but you can have more or less depending on the number of hymns and other text you might want to include.
READ MORE: See more about the sizes and shapes of order of service booklets I make here
3. How many church wedding order of service do I need?
I recommend ordering at least one order of service per household/family and a few spares, although many couples prefer to order one per guest. Don’t forget to include some for the bridal party and the choir if you are having one. Lots of my couples order extras for members of the congregation that will not be present at the wedding, they are lovely to hand out as a keepsake!
4. What do you need to include in your order of service?
The exact details to include and the order it all goes in can vary quite a lot from church to church. As a general guideline you should include:
- Couple’s names, wedding date, ceremony time & church
- Entrance music
- Hymns (include all words in full)
- Readings (what and who they will be read by)
- Details of any music/musicians played during the signing of the marriage certificate
- Prayers
- Recessional music
- Details of the wedding party
- Any special thank you messages, if you want to
Always check with your minister or church first as they often have a standard template for you to follow.
USEFUL BLOG: What do you put in a wedding order of service booklet
5. Is it possible to have a bilingual order of service?
Yes it is! I can work with you to create a design that can be fully bilingual, or include just some bilingual elements. Obviously, with more than one language your order of service may need more pages, but we can discuss that as part of the design process.
So that’s pretty much all you need to know about your church wedding order of service:
- Do you need one? Yes, usually.
- What size should it be? A5 or pocketsize are favourite, but it’s up to you.
- How many do you need? At least one per household, but include some spares .
- What goes in it? Lots of things – check out my blog here
- Can you have a bilingual one? Yes, absolutely! Get in touch to talk about how we can make that work for you.
Not having a church wedding, but want something similar to an order of service? Why not have a wedding ceremony booklet instead?
Read my blog here with lots more info about those.
If you have any other questions about your order of service booklet, drop me a message I’m always happy to help!
Jo
If you’ve found this blog about order of service useful, you might like these other ones too:
7 wedding order of the day ideas
Order of the day sign: What do you put on it?
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