Civil marriage service law will be amended to include such secular ceremonies.
There has been a big growth in non-religious weddings during the past 15 years: in 1996 only six percent of nuptials were in a registry office.
By 2011, this had increased to 29pc of all marriages. This is indeed a very substantial increase, and frankly indicates that the churches are losing ground in providing religious weddings.
Commerce
If this were the world of commerce, it would be the occasion to call in a marketing consultant to research why this is happening.
Is it simply a matter of faith - do fewer couples believe in the Christian form of wedlock?
Is it a question of fashion, of style, of peer group pressure?
Is it that church weddings seem too old-fashioned and conformist?
Has the Church itself failed to make a sufficiently good case for religious weddings?
Is it because more people are marrying for the second (or subsequent) time and do not qualify (or do not wish for) a church wedding?
Is it a dislike of formal rites? Yet that does not seem to apply to First Holy Communions, which still represent a significant ritual moment in a child’s life?
Is it a fear of expense? More formal weddings often do cost more.
But as the ‘wedding fayre’ business is very pro-active at selling the wedding brand, and all its accessories, I doubt that humanist weddings will uniformly remain budget occasions.
Humanist
Humanist weddings aren’t my idea of a good day out, but live and let live. If that’s what some people choose, the State is entitled to enable this possibility.
And perhaps the competition will sharpen up the churches’ approach to wedding days.
My suggestions would include: (a) the Christian faiths should advertise the advantage of a church wedding, which includes a unique location for music, flowers and pretty frocks; (b ) they should offer a price-range of weddings, from cheap and cheerful to De Luxe, with all the trimmings; (d) a faith service is a sacrament and emphasise that couples who make sacramental vows tend to have more lasting marriages; (e) no other competitor can offer that special spiritual dimension to the sealing of a relationship like a church wedding; (f) the Church has been doing this for centuries - anything else is just imitation.
The emergence of the humanist marriage service in Ireland should also be the launch of an affirmative campaign by churches to compete - and to beat the competition!