“It was a prompt from my Mum that made us have a look at the local church instead – it was right outside our house after all, but we’d never even seen inside,” she said.
The couple decided to go to a service at the church, St Mary’s, in Kelbrook. Following the service the couple decided this was where they wanted to marry and met with Vicar Tracy Rishton.
“Tracy was amazing,” said Katie, “She reassured us on so many things. Andy had been married before I met him. She talked to us about that and she was happy to marry us. I was raised as a Catholic, but that wasn’t an issue, and Tracy never once insisted we attended the church in order to marry there. Her husband was the church organist and he helped us choose music. The church as a whole gave us the bell-ringing free as a present. What really amazed me was how happy the whole congregation was for us, even though we were strangers to them really.”
Friendships grew as Katie and Andy planned their wedding and on the big day, many from the congregation came to the wedding. Katie and Andy continue to be part of the church’s activities two years after their wedding.
Katie added: “We lived in the village a couple of years before we got married but it wasn’t until we began attending church that we met so many people and really felt part of the community.”
