Weddings and christenings banned but funerals go on

WEDDINGS and baptisms will be banned under the new measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Funerals will still be allowed to go ahead but attendance will be limited, Boris Johnson announced last night.

‘We’ll stop all social events, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, but excluding funerals,’ he said in his address to the nation.

Thousands of couples will be forced to postpone wedding ceremonies, with some potentially facing huge bills if they have not taken out insurance.

Wedding venues, caterers, florists and churches will face cancellations for months after the announcement. Wedding insurers such as John Lewis and Debenhams have withdrawn their policies and most companies are suspending new applications for insurance because of the pandemic.

Last week, the Church of Scotland said it may be necessary to ‘restrict’ funerals to the minister, immediate family and funeral directors and ‘rearrange’ weddings. The

Catholic Church in Scotland had said it too was limiting weddings, funerals and christenings to immediate family.

A statement from the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland said: ‘For the celebration of baptisms, funeral Masses and weddings we would ask that only close family are invited.’

Church services have already stopped north of the Border for now, as religious leaders look to avoid larger gatherings.

Many mosques have suspended gatherings following guidance from the Muslim Council of Scotland.

Couples getting married had already been forced to revise their guest lists because of measures on social distancing and isolation for the elderly and vulnerable.

South of the Border, the Church of England, the Catholic Church, mosques, synagogues and other places of worship and religious institutions have all suspended routine services. Buckingham Palace last week announced that Princess Beatrice, the Queen’s granddaughter, was ‘reviewing’ her wedding plans. She was due to marry Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, on May 29.

The couple’s reception in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen, has already been cancelled.

Mr Mapelli Mozzi comes from the Lombardy region of Italy, where there have been almost 500 deaths from the virus.

A Palace spokesman said: ‘The couple will carefully consider government advice before deciding whether a private marriage may take place among a small group of family and friends.’

In 2016, there were more than 29,000 marrriages in Scotland and nearly 250,000 in England and Wales, according to National Records of Scotland and the Office for National Statistics.

The UK wedding industry is worth around £10billion a year, the wedding website Hitched reports.