Playford Village Website

International Marriage Week and our Marriage Festival

Over the weekend of 8th, 9th & 10th February the benefice celebrated the Institute of Marriage, in the form of the wedding festival. It all kicked off with a fundraising event at Playford hall where the Innes’ kindly opened their doors fed us with canapés and wine along with a brief history of the Hall and a tour of some of the main rooms. In some of the bedrooms were the beautiful family wedding dresses, along with mother and father of the bride’s. The festival continued over the following two days up at St. Mary’s Church where there were dresses from all over the dioceses displayed. Again absolutely stunning dresses that spanned across nearly a century. Almost each decade was represented, starting in the 1920’s. It was a great show of wedding fashion and how it has changed. Along with the dresses there was a display of photos of the happy couples on their special day. We also had windows decked out with hats, fascinators, veils, tiaras and one window with all those extra bits and bobs like champagne flutes, cake toppers and ring cushions. We even had a window with some wedding art. An enormous thank you to all those who loaned their precious dresses and memorabilia, the weekend and exhibition would not have worked without them all.

The church was also decked out, as is usual, with flowers and a big thank you goes to the ladies who always make the church look so lovely on a regular occasion and then make an even bigger effort on these special events to theme the flowers. The Hall and Church looked lovely.

We enjoyed a really nice service on the Sunday that was well attended. The service pulled together lots of favourite wedding hymns and readings, including the very popular Corinthians 13 about love, a personal favourite and always worth re-reading. The service concluded with the promised wedding cake at the end with the tea & coffee. The cake was superb, thank you Judith.

So thank you to everyone who contributed to the glowing success of this festival, despite the cold, snow and ice, we welcomed many visitors. There are far too many people to thank by name, it really was a great community project and it was a honour to pull it together.