In general, it is best to take the Bible at face value. But there are sections which contain a lot of symbolic language. The parts of the Bible which probably are the most "symbolic" are visions. The whole book of Revelation is full of visions.
I applaud Filipe for his willingness to think outside the box and for his desire to interpret the Bible as much as possible "at face value". However, the book of Revelation is one of the few parts of the Bible where interpreting it simply "at face value" may lead to many wrong interpretations.
On this particular issue, I think that the Bride of Christ does indeed refer to the church.
However, in terms of applying the Book of Revelation to our lives, I don't think we have to get the details of interpretation correct to get very important applications. Of course we should work to be as correct as possible, but we can get important life lessons without knowing the precise meaning of the many symbols and visions of Revelation.
I wrote about this in another thread, here:
The Book of Revelation is Practical and Applicable
