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Blessed unions

Couples choose downtown churches for spiritual and practical reasons, such as nearby beaches.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
Published August 29, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Courtesy of Shannon Livingston] Richard and Christin Carson chose Trinity Lutheran Church for its beauty and location. Her family lives in Dunedin.

ST. PETERSBURG - More couples are choosing downtown St. Petersburg churches to say their marriage vows.

Church officials give several reasons for the increase, such as proximity to popular reception venues including the Vinoy and Hilton hotels and the Lyceum.

Additionally, some say, couples are choosing their churches for their traditional architecture, which comes with touches such as stained glass windows and sweeping aisles. Other brides and grooms simply find the churches online as they plan "destination" weddings to Florida from thousands of miles away. For some couples, though, it might be that one downtown church has carved out a unique niche by offering ceremonies to unite gay and lesbian couples.

For churches, it can be a delicate balance between welcoming this new bounty - which can bring in hundreds of dollars to help cover expenses for everything from the minister to music to utilities - and pursuing their spiritual mission.

The new pastor of First United Methodist Church is concerned that while couples want their marriages to be blessed in a church, not all are willing to commit to an ongoing relationship with a community of faith.

"I am concerned about the same thing that other churches are, that people spend a lot of energy and resources around the celebration and often the spiritual side is kind of secondary," said the Rev. David R. Miller of First United Methodist Church.

Churches welcome weddings because they hope people will join their community, but that doesn't necessarily happen, Miller said.

"It's more of a business transaction in some cases," he said. "My philosophy is just not to be a place that is rented out as a hall."

To counter that assumption, most churches establish ground rules that comply with their doctrine and rituals. At Christ United Methodist and other downtown churches, for example, couples must complete required counseling sessions before the ceremony. Some churches regulate the type of music allowed.

When Richard and Christin Carson decided to have their reception at the Vinoy, they wanted a church close by. They chose Trinity Lutheran Church. "It was just a quarter of a mile away," said Richard Carson, 24.

With the bride's family living in Dunedin and guests flying in for the wedding, it made sense to have the ceremony nearby, said Carson, who lives in Dallas.

Besides, he added, "It was a beautiful church."

The Rev. R.M. "Buz" Van Horne, Trinity Lutheran's pastor, said interest in his church as a wedding site has increased this year.

"We constantly mention that it's a ministry of the church and that we do not rent out the church for weddings, but only do it as part of the whole ministry here," Van Horne said.

"We expect people to participate in counseling," he said.

Van Horne said most of the younger couples who marry at his church have grown up in the area.

"We've had a bunch of Lakewood High School graduates lately and quite a bunch of attorneys or students," he said.

"People go online and look at different churches and have a vision of what a wedding should be. A lot of them mention Web sites. As far as I know, we're not on YouTube."

Wendy Kiral, lay pastoral minister at St. Mary Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, said the church gets couples from thousands of miles away. Because the Catholic church does not permit weddings outside the church, couples who want their weddings near Florida beaches sometimes choose St. Mary's, she said.

"We've been blessed with a beautiful church. We had a couple who came from Washington, D.C. Last summer, the whole party came from Chicago," she said. "They see our church on the Internet and they see the location."

Kiral said, though, that out-of-towners have to bring their own priests for the ceremonies and must have completed required premarital classes.

St. Peter's Episcopal Cathedral has also seen "a spate of weddings," said administrator Pam League.

"We have weddings already on the books through August of '08. ...It's really interesting to see this type of thing pick up. Of course, we enjoy doing it. To us, it is a sacrament and people need to take it seriously. That's why we are particular about the way we do things here."

Couples must follow certain rules to be married at the historic Gothic revival cathedral, she said. "We don't do runners in the church. We do our own flowers. We don't allow unity candles. We try to be as flexible as possible," she said, adding that an October wedding will have bagpipers.

The number of weddings at the Unitarian Universalist Church of St. Petersburg has tripled in the past year, the Rev. Manish Mishra said. Many more nonmembers are choosing his church to get married, said Mishra, surmising that some may be choosing the church because of its recent community and social activism. Among the marriages performed at the Mirror Lake church are ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples. "It does not matter that the state does not legally recognize them. We morally and spiritually recognize these unions as marriages," Mishra said.

The only downtown church that has not seen an increase in wedding requests is First Presbyterian Church, where baseball player Gary Sheffield and his wife, DeLeon, renewed their vows in a candlelight ceremony with thousands of tapers a few years ago.

Administrator Sandy Williams said she thinks it's because the church recently lost its longtime pastor.

"Most people, when they get married, they want to get married by someone they know or who knows them," she said.

[Last modified August 29, 2007, 11:12:35]