"A story of love and faith being played out."- Rev Dave Jones reflects on his daughter's wedding.

Newlyweds Emily and Hayden Fraser met and fell in love in Taize in 2015 and got engaged there six years later. They were married on Saturday the 2nd of September 2023 at St David’s Church, Miskin in the Llan Ministry Area, where father of the bride, Rev Dave Jones, known to Emily as ‘Father, Father’, had the pleasure of conducting their ceremony. Here he reflects on the happy occasion, and how Taize has played such an important part in their relationship:

At my wedding talk at the church, I reflected that there are probably not many fathers of the bride who get to see the spark of love ignite between their daughter and the person that she would eventually marry.

I had witnessed the special moment on the bus trip to Taize, as I was travelling with Emily and a group from the Llandaff diocese. Hayden was on the bus with a group of friends from the Brighton area and had made the same connection as us at London Victoria bus station to join with 6,000 young people from all over the world to worship with the brothers at the ecumenical Christian monastic fraternity based in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France.

It wasn’t the most comfortable of meetings, in fact it was quite awkward, as Emily had unknowingly insulted Hayden’s friend , Jack. I believe it was at that moment, I saw a look in Hayden’s eye, and I could read his mind as he decided that Emily was the girl for him. It has been wonderful to have watched, over for quite a long time now, a story of love and faith being played out.

The wedding reception was held in St Paul’s church hall in Pontyclun, where the hall was transformed into a beautiful wedding venue. In October at St Paul’s church, we will be introducing a new monthly service, called ‘St Paul’s@4’, this will be a service of contempory worship with a light meal to finish.

St Paul’s@4 will pave the way for other new service patterns at St Paul’s, including on Advent Sunday 2023, Taize worship, from the chapel and campsites of Taize. This service will embrace Emily’s lasting first impressions of the Taize community, and that is, when you are at Taize you can be who you are meant to be without any judgement from others.

Worship at the chapel of Taize is amazing and deeply spiritual and we can already access worship close to the Taize experience in the Llandaff Diocese. However, there are also spiritual encounters that happen from within the campsites of Taize, inexplainable stuff, not a worship style, or a holy huddle, or a feeling, it just ‘is what it is.’

I want that in the Llan Ministry Area.

Emily and Hayden met as students and now they are adults, we also have people coming to St Paul’s Pontuclun who are in the same age bracket as them. They are asking for something different, something new, so, it is important that we embrace those requests and try new things.

I can’t wait to see what the future brings, both for Hayden and Emily and St Paul’s!