Sacred Vows and Sacred Spaces (Church)

Join us at the Beacon Urdu-Hindi Church for the fourth event in our Sacred Vows and Sacred Spaces series for the Heritage Open Days festival, featuring community conversations held in places of worship and heritage sites across the faiths.

Hosted by Bradford South Asian Festival, and inspired by our 2025 festival theme, Shadmanny - a Yorkshire-accented take on a Hindi and Urdu word for celebration - this project explores the joy, traditions, and cultural significance of South Asian wedding practices across faiths.

Across the two Heritage Open Days weekends, we’ll be hosting four “Chai & Chat" sessions in collaboration with local faith communities, offering a rare opportunity to visit a Hindu mandir, a Sikh gurdwara, a mosque, and a South Asian church.

Each event will begin with a short guided tour of the space, highlighting its heritage and community role, followed by a relaxed, informal conversation over tea and biscuits.

At the heart of each session are personal stories from older, married couples within each community - sharing how they met, how they married, and the ways in which faith, spirituality, tradition and family shaped both their weddings and their lifelong partnerships.

These conversations will reveal both the distinctiveness and the shared values of marriage across cultures and faiths.

The sessions aim to open up our beautiful worship and heritage spaces to everyone, allowing us to come together through food, faith and friendship!

The Sacred Vows and Sacred Spaces series is supported by Heritage Open Days and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture as part of the Elevate programme.