Updated
Gary and Tracy Richardson got married in St Mary and St Martin, in Blyth, Nottinghamshire on 15 June. There was dancing, and it was in church.
Gary and Tracy Richardson’s Wedding Flash Mob 15/06/2013
News reports include:
Church Times Disco-dancing vicar becomes web sensation
BBC Flash mob wedding dance: Tracy Richardson on ‘amazing’ reaction
Leon Watson for Mail Online Let us dance! Vicar leads wedding congregation with hilarious routine for flashmob video
And there was comment:
Vicky Beeching in The Independent that The ‘viral vicar’ who led wedding dance flash-mob is a great example of how to make religion interactive.
Andrew Brown in The Guardian This vicar’s disco dance gives hope to the Church of England
Church Times leader Dancing in the aisles
Update
Kate Bottley, the vicar who conducted the service, has been interviewed by Arun Arora, the CofE’s Director of Communications. Download the podcast from here.
Vicky Beeching sees a future Bishop in Kate Bottley, and indeed that may very well be the case, but there surely has to be more substance than a spectacular flash mob disco dance, for that to happen – or does there?
I thought that it was a super wedding when I saw the video. It is a pity that the Independent used the pleasure of a happy event to criticise the whole format of Christian worship. The layout of a church is determined by architecture, liturgy and history. Christianity and all great religions involve complicated ideas and concepts. The trivialisation of those concepts hinders religious and inter-religious understanding in the context of, in this case British but also of European plurality.
The Vicar gave the couple a splendid service the publicity misunderstands.