Weddingbee Blog

Over the weekend Mr. Joey and I met with the priest who is marrying us, and the chapel’s wedding coordinator. We weren’t looking forward to this meeting at all. We knew there were a few housekeeping issues that needed to be taken care of.

When we first asked about getting married at the chapel, we were told its use would be free to us because Mr. Joey is a teacher at the school. When we finally met with the school’s priest, he mentioned that the fee was now $500. Hmm. I should have said something then, but Mr. Joey said to wait and he’d check it out.

Using the chapel for free was probably the number one reason we decided to hold the ceremony there. The chapel is out of the way and not really convenient unless you live east of Seattle. When the other teachers at school heard about the fee, well, let’s say they we’re less than happy. They had also been told it would be free. I don’t think anyone else is thinking of using it, but I think they like knowing they had that free option. Many teachers and staff lobbied on our behalf, and because of that (thanks guys!) we were told the administration would review the fee and we’d find out what it would really be during this housekeeping meeting. Oh great, a confrontation with a priest.

The meeting went OK. There were some highlights and some lowlights.

The good news is that we don’t have to pay the $500 fee. We’re getting it for $250. I’m totally OK with the $250, because I know all the money is going to the chapel coordinator. She’s so nice! She was happy to hear we’d be pretty low maintenance and I was happy to hear she was super flexible should anything change. Now we can use the $250 in savings to pay for the required pre-cana classes. It looks like we’ll be spending $200 on those, so I guess the in total we’re saving $50? Not bad.

Our second piece of good news is that we can arrange the seating in the chapel any way we want. I know, right? When can you do that inside a church? The seats are movable, and so is the altar. All we have to do is draw up our plans, and Geri will arrange to have things moved. I can’t wait to play around with this.

The other piece of happy news is that we will be able to set up a mini breakfast bar outside the chapel. The school is less than a year old, so they are super strict about food and drink inside. Because we’re having the wedding early and having all pictures done before 10AM, we wanted to set up a breakfast bar for people to enjoy. I haven’t mentioned too much about it yet because I wasn’t sure the school would OK it. But they say it will be fine as long as it’s set up at the bottom of the stairs or in the teachers lounge. That works for me.

I don’t think we got bad news as much as we got a nice good slap of reality. We’re doing a Catholic blessing. We originally wanted to do a non-denominational ceremony, but both Mama Joey and FMIL Joey asked that we be married in a Catholic ceremony. FMIL Joey has been super great about supporting whatever we want, so we felt like we could do this for her. So, a blessing it is. For some reason, we thought a blessing would be the Rite of Marriage, followed by a blessing, and then we’d all peace out. Um, nope. It’s the full mass without communion. Mr. Joey was not happy about this.

Now we need to think about scripture readings, gospels and psalms. We hadn’t realized this because in our first meeting, we were told a blessing would take no more than 30 minutes. We weren’t provided with any materials about Catholic ceremonies at that time, because the school didn’t have any. We are the first couple to officially be married in the chapel. I probably should have done some research myself. D’oh! So now we’re going to get our scripture on. Non-scripture passages cannot replace the two required scripture readings, but can be read in addition to them. So that means no non-scripture passages. We’ve got to be out of there fast because of the hydro races and Blue Angels. Remember? I freaked out about them.

We also learned that we can’t have aisle runner and that we have to use musical selections from their list. I told Mr. Joey to push the list. He’s picked out music and I think it is totally appropriate for a church ceremony; definitely more so than Endless Love, which is on the list. I think if Geri and Father hear the selections, they’ll be fine with it.

So, the meeting wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t all great. We have a little more work to do, a little less freedom, and $50 extra to play with, but I guess that’s the way it goes.

Did you get any surprises (good or bad) from your church or officiate late in the game? What were they, and how did you adjust?

P.S. If any of you in the Seattle area took a pre-cana or other marriage prep course you really liked, will you shoot me a note or mention it below? Since the chapel doesn’t offer marriage prep, we have to get it done elsewhere.