Weddings R Us

I read an excellent article on the concept of centrally-set fees for Church of England weddings in the Guardian.

And I totally agree with whichever C of E people came up with this idea.

Because if I wanted to make the Church of England irrelevant, while simultaneously alienating people in poor neighbourhoods, and hitting expensive-to-run churches in expensive places - I'd do exactly what is described. I presume that's what they're aiming for?

Let me put it this way - if I had a Moot House on a 1960s housing estate in a London overspill town, and I wanted people to hold weddings in it, I'd keep my prices pretty low. People in those environments don't earn much money, and living unwed is always the zero-cost option. So I'd want a low entry point.
But if I were running, let's say, the Beaker equivalent of St Martin in the Fields or somewhere - or a nice little 13th century place in a small village with not many people but a steeple with expensive running costs - I'd want to keep my prices up a bit. These people like to have a nice background for their wedding photos, and I'd have a lot of running costs - and I'd want to do everything I could to keep that pretty background for the photos open as long as I could. Let's face it, one day somebody might be saved.

The Guardian accuses the Good Old Church of England (someone's got to keep the phrase going) of "managerialism". Which I don't really agree with. Managers in real businesses have to get their pricing policies right, or they go out of business. I wouldn't really call this suggestion "managerialism". I think I'd call it a cartel. And the problem with cartels is - they don't work if someone can compete with you. Like the hotels with wedding licences and the Registry offices, and just plain old - as it was once called - living in sin. An oil cartel would be a terrible thing to try and run if electric cars were efficient. How do the people who came up with this barmy idea think it would be any different?