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Mrs. Dumpling, Las Vegas Age and Occupation: 27, Finance Fiance's Age and Occupation: 34, Real Estate Engagement Date: March, 2008 Wedding Date: March, 2009 Blogging Since: August 26, 2008 Venue: Catholic church ceremony & golf course reception About Me: I grew up in the Deep South, and while most people say I have a thick southern accent, I tend to think it only comes out when I need to use it. Living in Las Vegas has definitely been an adventure and Mr. Dumpling and I are loving every minute of it! We are planning a traditional Catholic wedding ceremony and a reception with lots of DIY! We might even get Elvis to show up! I'm a HUGE Beatles fan, love The Office and can't wait to become a Mrs.!
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Pre-Cana… 8 Hours Well Spent

November 10th, 2008 @ 4:27 pm by Mrs. Dumpling

Without going into too many researchy-technical definitions, Pre-Cana is a seminar thing that you and your fiance have to go through in order to get married in a Catholic church. If you really want to learn more about it, go here. But if you want my jumbled account, keep reading. And reading.

I was very nervous before we went. You see, I wasn’t born with the “I’m a chick, let’s talk about feeeelings” gene, so the very thought of having to do just that in front of church people and strangers scared the mess out of me. I had heard horror stories about it being 2 weeks long or weekend sessions, and that you are forced to talk OUT LOUD about your money, plans for kids and intimacy. Psshhhhhttt… no thanks. Can’t do it. And definitely NOT in front of church folks. But, it was nothing like that. In fact, it wasn’t scary at all. We basically sat in a room for 8 hours with other engaged couples and only talked amongst ourselves. There were, however, some parts we kinda hated, besides the food.

We feel like we are good Catholic kids that try to do right and live our lives according to Christ, but we also know that there are some things we do that the church isn’t cool with. For example, we live together. The Deacon at the seminar told us that couples who live together before marriage have a 50% greater chance of getting divorced than those who live apart until marriage. I’m sorry, but I needed to test drive the vehicle before I made the purchase and it was a great decision for us. However, I respect our church and decided not to lie and give two different addresses, like one couple did, and they couldn’t have been more supportive and forgiving. They even acknowledged that in these tough economic times, it makes sense for couples to live together. But, I still feel bad.

We also found out that the church does not approve of methods such as IVF to get pregnant. I feel differently and plan to consider this method as a possibility if we have issues. If you remember, I mentioned before that we plan on starting our family as soon as we get married. I asked the Deacon’s wife (a wonderful, wonderful woman who I am totally in love with and has been married to our Deacon for 51 years!) how she felt about this, and she said that while the Catholic church is a believer in natural family planning, she also knows how hard it is for some couples and that the church is very forgiving. I appreciated her honest and thoughtful answer and decided that if we ever have to think about this, that I would at least put it 4th or 5th on the list, instead of 1st. I’m trying, you know?

OK, moving on… what else did we talk about?

Oh, yes. Money. Would we get a joint account? Was it ok if your partner made more money than you? Do you owe money that your partner doesn’t know about? All great questions and very important things to talk about before you marry someone. There were a lot of young couples in the room and it was obvious that this section of the course got their wheels turnin’. Being the oldest couple there, and the record holders for longest relationship, we didn’t have much to discuss other than “Yes, Mr. Dumpling. I know you make more money. I’m OK with it if you are. You are? Great, cause I’m poor.” At this point we were in the 5th hour of the day and Mr. Dumpling was getting restless. We had to fill out a budget worksheet that asked us how much cash we had in the bank, and Mr. Dumpling wrote $1 million*** and handed it over. Thanks, Mr. D. Now they’re going to think we’re straight up cheap for not tithing our 10%. Good job. (***We have nowhere NEAR that. He was just being obnoxious.)

The next section focused on the couple’s love for one another. They gave us another worksheet and asked us to write a love letter to our partner that described in detail how much you love them. I really took this seriously and wrote about the first day we met, and how my favorite sounds are the garage door opening when he gets home, his snoring and the sound of his voice while he sings in the shower. Please don’t ask me what he wrote because I have no idea. Methinks he tossed his out after reading mine because his was either 1) blank or 2) a page full of jokes. I can’t blame the boy, though. I know how much he loves me. He wrote me a song 4 years ago and had it recorded. He also let’s me fill up our TiVo with re-runs of Jon + Kate and hours of Food Network challenges. That’s love in the Dumpling house.

Over the next 4 hours we talked about things that might come between a marriage (infidelity, stress, work, money), ways to talk to your spouse in times of frustration, and that we should always, no matter what, put our spouse first. Catholic or not, putting your spouse first is the most important thing to remember. They reminded us over and over again that the wedding is one day, but that marriage is forever. We, as brides, sometimes forget that and put all of our energy into planning a party. It was great, for me at least, to have that put into perspective.

Say what you want about the Catholic church, but this course was very helpful. It was open to couples of all faiths and didn’t once try to “convert” anyone. I was skeptical at first, but I’m glad we did this. Sure, we joked around and kind of hated some parts, but it forced us to talk about things that we had never discussed (only silently assumed) before that day. I highly recommend that couples look into something like this- even outside of their church. Eight hours later, it was over and we were sent on our merry way with our nice little certificate. YAY! It’s all really coming together and we are reallllly getting married. Awesome.

How do you feel about some sort of couple’s counseling before marriage? Have you gone through a similar process with your church or have you sought out counseling on your own?

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31 Responses to “Pre-Cana… 8 Hours Well Spent”

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1.
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Laura

thanks for posting this! we’re going to pre-cana in two weeks and I was a little nervous about what to expect (we live together also) although I am happy we are going through the process. I’m glad to hear you had such a good experience.

 
2.
hbowar
Member
hbowar (message)  547 posts, Busy bee

I’m really glad you wrote this! We are doing a weekend retreat in January and I am nervous about the same things you were! I wish ours was only a day long, but oh well! I am looking forward to it, but nervous at the same time!

 
3.
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Laura

I have to admit that our Pre-Cana class wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Like you, there were things that we didn’t agree with and stuff that we would have liked to have slept through. The best part of the class was when we had a married couple come in at the end who had been married for 50 years. Hearing stories from a real life married couple about the truth about marriage, especially told with a sense of humor like they had, was the best message we got the whole day. I did feel closer to my FI at the end of the day and excited about our marriage.

 
4.
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Bee
Mrs. Pineapple (message)  682 posts, Busy bee

thanks for the post dumpling! I had no idea what pre-cana was before hearing about it from you. We didn’t do any sort of pre-wedding classes, but I wouldn’t have been totally against the idea if Mr. P expressed interest. I am like you though and would have been freaking out about the feely talk and tense topics.

 
5.
Mrs. Penguin
Bee
Mrs. Penguin (message)  3,499 posts, Sugar bee

This is something that I secretly wished we’d been forced to do before getting married too. While I think we would have acted similarly to you and Mr. D at times and thought parts of it were a waste, its nice to sort of be “forced” to talk about some of these things in the open. I know money is a very strange subject for Mr. Peng and I… we dont share bank accounts and I don’t anticipate that we will for quite a long time, so we still have that weird awkwardness when it comes to talking about money and buying things. We both make roughly the same amount of money so that makes things slightly easier… or does it? Since we both feel entitled to our own money, we don’t treat each other like a “couple” but more like “roommates” when it comes to money. AWKWARD!

Great post! I loved reading about the “Pre Cana Reality” :)

 
6.
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Moni

I would definitely like to do pre-marital counseling, though my fiance isn’t thrilled about the idea. He’s of the “why do we need to talk to some stranger about our personal lives” school, while I’m of the “why wouldn’t you want a structured way to learn more about each other and learn strategies to prevent or deal with issues before they happen” school. The fact that we currently live in different locations and are getting married in a third location makes things even more difficult.

Does anyone know of any good resources for finding a counselor? We’d prefer a weekend retreat type of class. Thanks!

 
7.
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Leslie S.

My husband and I had to do pre-marital counseling with our preacher as a requirement for getting married in our church (the church is Southern Baptist). We did our counseling sessions with just the preacher, which I thought was really nice. I think we learned a lot from our sessions and have been able to apply things we learned in the year and a half that we have been married so far.

 
8.
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Jojo

I think I saw you at the Pre-Cana class this Saturday!!! Sorry, I kept looking over trying to figure out if it was you. I’m the one that said “he wants 4 kids and I only want 1″. Lol

 
9.
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proudfarmwife

We are not Catholic (call us Evangelical, Protestant, what have you), but we went through a weekend retreat that I’m pretty sure is based on the Pre-Cana. It was called Mennonite & Brethren Engaged Encounter and was awesome… a weekend that was set aside for just the two of us to address a lot of things- things that are important but not always thought of in the preparations for the wedding. We really enjoyed it. Actually, because of scheduling conflicts we ended up going about 6 weeks AFTER we were married (M&BEE wasn’t required by our ministers and we did the approved pre-marital counselling before the wedding)… we were the only couple there that was living together- because we were married (we had not lived together prior to the wedding). So we got stuck in a room together (engaged couples at this retreat are not roomed together) on a totally seperate floor than the rest of the couples, not that there was anything wrong with that- I, as a new bride, did NOT want to know what the rest of ‘class’ was thinking we were up to… ;) But, back to the point, even though we’d already committed, this was still very valuable to us and we both consider it a high point in our relationship.
So, I definitely have to say that I reccomend something like this to any engaged couple!

 
10.
hbowar
Member
hbowar (message)  547 posts, Busy bee

@Moni: We are doing a Catholic based weekend through Engaged Encounter .

 
11.
hbowar
Member
 
12.
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Shopaholica

For figuring out newlywed money issues, I highly recommend reading “Smart Couples Finish Rich” by David Bach. My fiance and I got the book when we first moved in together and it really helped us allocate funds, figure out how much to save, spend, and helped us set goals for our future.

 
13.
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futuregrado (message)  68 posts, Worker bee

My fiance is catholic but I am not and we were required to attend the pre-cana, except ours was a weekend! It was a little bit overkill since I too do not like to “hug it out” however i LOVED it and it really opened lines of communication for us and hopefully a healthy marriage! The thing I worried about the most was the FOCCUS test, however the priest went over our results with us this weekend and apparently we did very well according to the catholics! Our pre-cana was run by two volunteer couples who both had catholic men with non-catholic wives. It was nice to hear how they raised their children and other challenges they faced. Thank you for writing about this, I love when bees open up about their religion and beliefs. I know it’s private but it’s encouraging to see :)

 
14.
suzanno
Hostess
suzanno (message)  2,683 posts, Sugar bee

We also did our pre-marital counseling with just our pastor. It was 8 evening sessions (60 each) over 4 months. The first 6 covered personality types, an examination of how we relate to each other, discussion of the basic big issues (family, sex, money, autonomy…) and the last two were actually planning and writing the ceremony. We were really happy with the format and content - much more so than I think we would ever have been with a classroom type of experience. First of all, although our pastor covered all his standard subjects, he very much tailored the level of discussion to our specific issues. For instance, because we are a little older than some couples, our “family” issues are far less about whether we get along with each others’ parents, and far more about the fact that he has sole custody of his kids from his former marriage. And secondly, we had lots of homework. Every session we had some assignment to complete over the next two weeks. Generally those resulted in a lot of discussions outside the counseling sessions - way more, I think, than if we had packed it all into a single day.

We thought we had talked over most of the big issues before ever agreeing to marry, but our premarital counseling was a really great experience, and we did learn even more about each other. I’m really happy that we did it.

 
15.
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Adrienne

Thanks for the post! We just met with my priest and found out what all we need to do to be married there. We actually have three different courses to complete. 1) An Engaged Encounter weekend retreat - two days long. 2) A Natural Family Planning course - 7.5 hours long (I have no idea what they can talk about for that long). 3) Couple mentoring, we go to a couple’s house within our church (assigned to us by the priest) and they mentor us for approximately 5 hours. I am actually looking forward to some of it in hopes that we get to know each other a little better even if we think that’s impossible. Hopefully I enjoy ours as much as you did yours!

 
16.
sweetestdaybride
Member
sweetestdaybride (message)  43 posts, Newbee

Thanks so much for this! We are doing pre-cana in February and I’ve always wondered what its really like! :)

 
17.
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Bee
Miss Hot Cocoa (message)  2,077 posts, Buzzing bee

I’ve never heard of pre-cana before this post — it sort of sounds like a medical procedure or a fruit! — so this is very edifying. Mr. HC is supposed to come to my conversion classes with me, but since we live in different cities and he’s doing his sub-internships, he’s only showed up to one. He spent the entire time writing lewd messages to me in Hebrew.

 
18.
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Miss Dumpling (message)  722 posts, Busy bee

@Miss Hot Cocoa: SOO Funny! Lewd messages in Hebrew. Have you seen the SATC episodes where Charlotte tries to convert and the Rabbi keeps slamming the door in her face? I love those.
@futuregrado: Hug it out…yeah i hate anything that makes me “hug it out.” But this was pretty painless!
@Mrs. Penguin: There are really funny accounts of precana if you just google it….which are more candid than mine. It was really great for us, as we had only ever assumed what would happen with money and kids after 6 years of mentioning it in passing. We have sep. accounts too, but i think after the wedding we will have one joint and each have our own sep. one.
@Shopaholica: thanks for the tip!

 
19.
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Miss Cheese (message)  801 posts, Busy bee

I think y’all know my take on couples counseling — I think it’s awesome and extremely enlightening. Good for you — I’m glad it was a good experience!

 
20.
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pailoflove

thanks for posting this. our church works a little different. we are coupled with a couple from the church and do several 1 hour sessions. in a way that’s good because we don’t have to be with several strangers. but at the same time sharing 1 hour with strangers and we can’t just “be quiet” cause there is no one else to talk but us!

 
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Mrs. Dumpling
Mrs. Dumpling

Mrs. Dumpling, Las Vegas Age and Occupation: 27, Finance Fiance's Age and Occupation: 34, Real Estate Engagement Date: March, 2008 Wedding Date: March, 2009 Blogging Since: August 26, 2008 Venue: Catholic church ceremony & golf course reception About Me: I grew up in the Deep South, and while most people say I have a thick southern accent, I tend to think it only comes out when I need to use it. Living in Las Vegas has definitely been an adventure and Mr. Dumpling and I are loving every minute of it! We are planning a traditional Catholic wedding ceremony and a reception with lots of DIY! We might even get Elvis to show up! I'm a HUGE Beatles fan, love The Office and can't wait to become a Mrs.!

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