Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue - and two to three years of religious training before the marriage, according to the Spanish Catholic church, which wants couples to prepare more thoroughly before tying the knot.

The country’s Catholic hierarchy has designed a “two-to-three year” course for engaged couples to take before their nuptials in a bid to tackle Spain's high divorce rates.

At the moment, couples only have 20 hours of spiritual guidance before having a church wedding in Spain.

“Marriage training cannot be done in 20 hours. To become a priest requires seven years in the seminary, so how can we say it’s 20 hours to become a husband, wife, father and mother?” remarked Mario Iceta, the bishop of Bilbao and chair of the Spanish Episcopal Conference’s (CEE) family committee, on presenting the initiative.

Bishop Iceta said that when he had served as a parish priest, he would ask couples why they thought they were present on the short marriage course, and some replied that they were there to get permission to marry in church.

“Wrong. You are here because according to the statistics, 40 per cent of marriages are broken after five years, and 60 per cent after 15 years,” the bishop said at the presentation on Thursday.