It's turning out to be a very busy autumn for weddings. But a couple came and asked if they could make "alternative vows" at their wedding. You wonder what's coming next: do they want to replace "'till death us do part" with "until a week on Tuesday"? Not quite.

He, with the David Beckham haircut and clothing hanging about him like the churchyard tramp, wanted to stand at the chancel steps and begin his lifelong vows with the immortal words: "Ever since we met last year in the disco...". We didn't get as far as her reply. They took kindly enough to my advice: "Sorry loves, this is the Church of England. Have you tried 'Blind Date'?" and shoved off.

For the lesson, the favourite always used to be the miraculous chapter from St Paul ending with "and the greatest of these is love". Or else something luscious and sexy about her breasts from the Old Testament's Song of Songs.

But recent trends bear out GK Chesterton's warning that: "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything". Couples increasingly ask if they might read the bum-clenchingly awful "Invitation" by someone with the preposterous name of Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This starts by hoping that the bride has not been "shrivelled and closed". No doubt the bridegroom hopes not too. It goes on to wonder whether the couple have "touched the centre of their own sorrow".

And then: "I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me." And: "I want to know what sustains you from the inside" - to which the only possible response is: "Tripe and onions, love". But the best line must be: "I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone." Good grief, it's going to be a rough honeymoon.

We use the old book at St Michael's, so we don't go in for any of that crooning sentimental guff you find in the new Common Worship - hideously mawkish phrases such as: "All that I am I give to you". Then, incredibly, the priest prays: "Let them be tender with each other's dreams."

The marvellous thing about the old Marriage Service is that it gives the lie to the accusation that the Christian faith is puritanical and anti-sex. In an ecstatic phrase the bridegroom says to his bride: "With my body I thee worship."

But what to say in the Address? It's meant to be a cheerful occasion, so a story or two helps.

The bridegroom went to see the vicar to arrange his wedding. The vicar asked him: "Do you want the old service or the new one?" The young man said he thought he would prefer the new one. On his wedding day, he was driving to church through a thunderstorm and his car got stuck in the flood. Nothing for it but to get out and push. Unfortunately, this got his trouser bottoms soaking wet. So he rolled them up. He arrived at church late and the vicar was already standing in front of the bride on the chancel step. When he saw the bridegroom coming up the aisle with his trousers rolled up, he called out: "Pull your trousers down!"

To which the bridegroom replied: "You know, vicar, I think I will have the old service after all."

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.