DURING a meeting the other day, I mentioned that when I was a student I had a summer job as a guide at Craigievar Castle in Aberdeenshire. When one of the group said his brother had been married there, I was somewhat disconcerted. In the far-off days when I and a university friend were living in a caravan beneath the castle walls, memorising its history, and how to pronounce the family name, this would have been deemed heresy. The idea that strangers might enjoy a shindig beneath its pink harled turrets would have given its National Trust for Scotland guardian an apoplexy.

Even though today’s wedding parties don’t actually take place inside the castle – a marquee is erected on the lawn where we used to hang our washing – it is still a remarkable relaxing of the fiercely territorial attitude that once surrounded our most stately (and high-maintenance) homes.

My surprise, of course, shows how out of date I am when it comes to weddings. As I have since discovered, thanks in part, no doubt, to the beauty and charm of places like Craigievar, Scotland is the most popular wedding location in the UK. Where else, after all, are there more atmospheric country houses or peel towers or haunted castles, offering a perfect romantic backdrop for photo albums and Instagram?

Now comes news that for the first time since they began in 2005, humanist weddings have outnumbered those presided over by the Kirk. Before you antipicate a revolution, the situation is not exactly the hare hurtling past the tortoise. The figures for 2017 are: Humanist Society of Scotland, 3,283, Church of Scotland, 3,166. But while this might sound a bit like a Saturday’s football results table, it is an indication of a gradual shift in the way society, especially those in their twenties and thirties, see marriage.

Unlike funerals, which are hurriedly organised, the way people choose to marry can be taken as an accurate reflection of cultural values. Unless done with shotgun haste, every aspect of the ceremony, and the reception, will have been given intense consideration, usually over a period of months, or years.

Not for one minute do I think that all who are married by a humanist are card-carrying believers, or could quote the society’s principles word for word. In this, though, are they any different from those who marry in church, yet are rarely seen in the pews before they tie the knot, or thereafter? Nevertheless, for couples who choose either a church or a humanist celebration, it obviously holds a meaning they don’t believe they would find elsewhere.

The attraction of the humanist package, I would suggest, is less its non-religious nature and more the freedom it allows to plan an imaginative and individual day. Humanism is not doing more business at the expense of the church. It is not stealing custom. Where 15 years ago hundreds of couples would simply have headed for the registry office, a humanist ceremony offers a chance to be more original and thoughtful. As the Humanist Society of Scotland website says, “you can get married anywhere in Scotland (as long as it’s safe and dignified).”

That, surely, is the key to the trend. Of course there are couples for whom it reflects a need to express ethical principles without the imprimatur of the Church of Scotland, an institution, and a creed, that people view either as irrelevant, or archaic. Yet you can’t help wondering if the surge is less about the personal wording of the vows that humanism encourages – which can be done in a non-religious registry office, to equally moving effect – and more about the chance to make this pledge in VisitScotland splendour. Or in tranquil woodland, or bracing clifftop air, or at the zoo.

This is not to knock that desire. You might say, in fact, that the importance put on choosing the right location shows the depth of meaning couples are bringing to their unions. Humanism’s popularity is a reason for optimism, not concern, even among church-goers.

Kirk ministers might feel slighted, but they are just as likely to be relieved that their weekend diary is less hectic, and that fewer are making a pretence of piety, when all they really wanted was a venue, a pealing bell, and the legal certificate. Indeed, several ministers of my acquaintance have cheerfully confessed that they prefer taking funerals, because it is a chance to say something profound about Christian belief, an opportunity to touch their listeners’ hearts, or at least offer them comfort. By comparison, the tokenistic church wedding is a formality to be ticked off, a means to an end, and the minister little more than an accessory, like the flowers or cake.

The same might also be said, of course, of some humanist ceremonies, which merely facilitate a tailor-made day for the happy pair, a unique experience to suit our wealthy bespoke age. In the end, though, who cares where or how people wed? As long as the commitment is made in good faith, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what form that belief takes.