As you already know, the Church of England Marriage Measure 200(-), which is not yet law, provides for a couple to have the same right to marry, without an Archbishop's Special Licence, in the parish church of a parish with which one or both of them can show that he or she has a 'qualifying connection'.

The Measure needs Parliamentary approval before it becomes law. It is still not yet known exactly how long this process will take and so advice from Church House, Westminster is that for the moment we need to continue to apply the existing law in relation to residence/electoral roll requirements. If these are not satisfied the couple must still apply for an Archbishop’s Special Licence.

So what happens next? The Archbishops are waiting for the Measure to receive the Royal Assent. Once this happens they can make a commencement order setting a date for the provisions of the Measure. At that point, clergy can begin to explore informally with couples whether one of them has a ‘qualifying connection’ and it will then be possible to take provisional  bookings.

But it won’t be possible to begin the formal process until the Measure is actually in force. This will not be before 1st September 2008 and could be later.

Hope this makes some sort of sense!

There is a very useful Q&A document on the Church of England website at
http://cofe.anglican.org/info/socialpublic/marriagefamily/marriageanddivorce/marriagemeasure/mmqanda.rtf
which is worth reading.

We’ll keep you updated as the situation becomes clearer…