A country church near York will stage a wedding for the first time in 21 years this weekend after a plea by a local family found favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury's office.

St Martin's Church, in the tiny village of Whenby, near Sheriff Hutton, will be the venue on Saturday as local girl Jenny Benson, 24, marries Geoff Harker, 35.

Despite St Martin's officially being a redundant church, which cannot stage weddings, Jenny was determined that she should tie the knot in her home village.

So, her family went through a year of applications to convince the Church of England to allow the wedding to take place there, and it was the Archbishop of Canterbury's office which finally gave the nod to end all the uncertainty. Jenny and husband-to-be Geoff, who are former jockeys, live in Middleham, near Leyburn, but Jenny would not settle for any other church than St Martin's, in Whenby, because she was brought up in the village.

She said: "It took a bit of getting. We had to apply and reapply. But it couldn't have been anywhere else - it's home."

Her mum and dad, Paul and Hazel Benson, still live in Whenby, a village with just 17 houses.

Paul, who is churchwarden, said: "It took us a year to get permission and we had to get a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"It's such a small community and the whole village has got right behind us."

Hazel added: "We fought very hard. We had to write several letters and we had to state all our reasons for wanting Jenny to get married there."

The church, which dates back at least 750 years, became technically redundant 21 years ago when it lost its parish church status and has been looked after ever since by the Churches Conservation Trust.

Since then, it has only been used for the odd carol service and on St Martin's Day.

The process began for the family in July of last year.

They initially got permission from the Bishop of Selby.

They then approached the Churches Conservation Trust at the end of the year, which initially refused, then relented, before the Archbishop of Canterbury's office gave the final say.

A spokesman for the York diocese of the Church of England said that a licence being granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury's office was not unheard of.

He said that such a course of action would be taken if a couple were planning to marry in a church at which they were not worshippers and with which they had no connection.

Similar rules applied to Jenny and Geoff as they were applying to be married in a church which was technically redundant and, therefore, did not officially have a parish.

They also had to apply to the Churches Conservation Trust as the church was protected by that organisation and was considered to be of great architectural importance.

Updated: 11:08 Thursday, June 07, 2001