Los Angeles, USA - The controversy over same-sex marriage -- along with a growing sense that many couples who marry in churches never return -- has prompted faith leaders to say it's time to reconsider how couples tie the knot.
After the California Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California began encouraging all couples to marry outside the church.
"I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service, and then being blessed in the Episcopal Church," Bishop Marc Handley Andrus wrote his clergy June 9.
This model is used by many European countries, according to John Witte, director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He said that approach has been practiced in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia and other countries for many years.
"In those countries, the civil ceremony is sufficient," he said.
The Very Rev. Brian Baker, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento, supports the bishop's proposal.
Being a part of a couple's special day is an honor, Baker said. But like other clergy, he believes weddings have become too trying in recent years.
"There are a lot of benefits in getting out of the legal marriage business," he said. "This way the clergy and the couple can focus on the spiritual blessings the church has to offer and not the political stuff."
The proposal has intrigued church members. "I'd like to learn more. Is a blessing the same as a wedding?" asked Kim Lake of Sacramento.
George Raya is a member of Integrity, the Episcopal Church's support group for gays and lesbians.
"I heard about it last week," he said. "To me, it's (the church's) way of getting around treating us equally. As soon as we can get married, they want us to get blessed? A lot of us would like to get married in church."
The Episcopal Church does not allow same-sex marriages.
Many couples still dream of the big church wedding -- the steeple, the organ music, the flowers on the altar.
Despite the rise in destination weddings - overlooking the ocean, or in a foothills winery, or in Hawaii - nearly half of all ceremonies take place at a house of worship, according to the Conde Nast American Wedding Study 2006.
Stefanie Franks was willing to wait - and pay for her dream church wedding. Last Saturday, she married Christopher Malenab in a traditional Catholic ceremony at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, perhaps the most popular sanctuary in the region for weddings.
The downtown church is booked for most of the year and charges $2,300 per wedding, a cost that includes the use of the sanctuary as well as fees for the organist and the wedding coordinator.
"I grew up practicing my faith," said Franks, two days before her ceremony. "To me, getting married in a church is important for religious reasons."
That is not true for all couples, said Baker and other clergy. Many come for the wedding and the pictures by the stained glass windows but never return to the church.
"They want to get married, so they pick a church but don't go after the ceremony," said Baker. "We never see them again."
The idea of a secular marriage followed by a religious ceremony is something church leaders of various faiths have been discussing since the ruling on gay marriage, said Kent Carlson of Oak Hills Church in Folsom. He finds the idea "interesting, but I'm still thinking about it."
Carlson said many pastors are concerned about working as agents of the state, something they do during wedding ceremonies when they say, for example, "by the power vested in me."
"This makes some ministers uncomfortable, because we're performing a civil function," says Carlson. "Most of us are pastors first."