Going to the Chapel

Going to the Chapel

April 9th, 2009 @ 5:36 pm by Mrs. Beagle
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When Mr. B and I started talking more seriously about an engagement, we had a number of discussions on religion. He is Catholic, and a majority of his extended family is Catholic. I am Lutheran, and my family is either Catholic or Lutheran. Although the two religions are very similar, there are some key differences between them. I didn’t, and still don’t really care about the location of our ceremony, but I was more concerned with who conducted the ceremony. My family has been attending the same church for the last 20 years, in which the same pastor has presided. It was/is important to me that we were both comfortable with the person performing the ceremony. For me, that meant someone we were very familiar with and knew well. Thus, an obvious choice was my pastor. However, it was/is important for Mr. B to have a Catholic ceremony. We discussed many different alternatives that would appease the both of us. For a while, I considered having an outdoor ceremony outside of either church. Of course, I quickly changed my mind when I remembered how unpredictable the weather in Texas is, and how expensive it would be to have a Plan B in case of rain, cold weather, or sweltering heat.

I think the most beneficial result of our discussions was that each of us was able to understand the other’s views of their own religion. We both respect that we were raised with different religious backgrounds, but we are more open to explore each other’s religions now that we have a better understanding of its importance.

For a while I think we were frustrated that religion and the ceremony was continually being discussed. At the time I thought that maybe it was because each of us wanted to have our own way. Now that I look back, I think it was really that we wanted the other to listen.

At this point, we have decided to have a Lutheran ceremony (at my family church, with my pastor) and we will also be incorporating some aspects of the Hispanic/Catholic ceremony, which I will go into further depth about at a later point.

Have you learned anything about your relationship from wedding planning?

Tags: ceremony, religion |

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14 Responses to “Going to the Chapel”

Member

j_nicolle (message) 212 posts, Helper bee

I just wanted say how excited I am to see another Lutheran bride/Catholic groom combo. We are having an outdoor ceremony, and my pastor is marring us but we will be getting blessed by his at a later date. Let’s just say it took a lot of discussion and tears before this decision was reached! I’m glad everything worked out for you guys. We were both amazed at how strict the churches can be (that our pastors can’t perform a ceremony together, etc.)

4/9/09 @ 5:55 pm (reply)

Guest

Sakoro

I am also interested in how you will incorporate hispanic/Catholic elements into a Protestant service. Will you use a lazo/lasso? They are usually made out of two rosaries… and we aren’t Catholic and won’t be praying the rosary, so it didn’t make sense for us [also a white/latino couple] to incorporate this.

4/9/09 @ 5:59 pm (reply)

Member

MaPo (message) 315 posts, Helper bee

It definitely opened the door to discussing how we would raise our kids which is of course so great to discuss before marrying.

4/9/09 @ 6:14 pm (reply)

Hostess

MightySapphire (message) 7,632 posts, Bumble Beekeeper

Oh yeah!! The religion thing was weird for us because his father is a minister…which made him dislike organized religion. My family kind of fell away from the church, but as it turns out all of them are VERY Catholic! They still think I’m big into religion but when I really thought about it, I didn’t want a Catholic ceremony. So we decided that religion wouldn’t be part of our ceremony!

4/9/09 @ 6:18 pm (reply)

Member

leenmachine (message) 262 posts, Helper bee

I’m Catholic and he’s Lutheran. I totally know what you mean about having someone that knows you marry you. Since moving with the FI, we’ve been going to his church, and I’ve had such a connection with his church and pastor more than I’ve ever had with any Catholic Church. His dad and grandpa are both pastors and we were thinking of having them do the ceremony but they both didn’t want to take over someone else’s church. I love our pastor though. I wouldn’t have anyone else do our counseling or marry us besides him. Thankfully, my parents have been okay with having a Lutheran ceremony. Then again, they aren’t exactly hardcore either.

I don’t know how it would have worked if we decided to have a Catholic ceremony. The FI probably would have had to convert.

4/9/09 @ 6:29 pm (reply)

Member

phruphru (message) 184 posts, Blushing bee

You’d be really surprised about how open the Catholic church is these days to interfaith couples. Have you thought about asking a Catholic priest to co-officiate the wedding along with the Lutheran priest? I know that may sound easier said than done (you’d have to do pre-Cana, etc.) but it can be done. We are an interfaith couple and while we’re getting married in the Catholic church, our priest said that he has gone to other places of worship — Jewish temples, other Christian churches, etc. — and helped marry couples there. If your FI’s family is hardcore Catholic, they won’t consider a Luthern wedding a “real” wedding unless it has the blessing of a Catholic priest.

4/9/09 @ 6:49 pm (reply)

Member

MrsSl82be (message) 8,508 posts, Bumble Beekeeper

I didn’t realize how important my venue was until I saw it and realized the history of it. I can’t wait to get married there and be able to display pictures of other weddings (my grandparents, parents, uncles) in the very same place

4/9/09 @ 7:18 pm (reply)

Member

lauralou852 (message) 516 posts, Busy bee

I’m excited to see how you handle this! My family is all Lutheran/Catholic as well, my fiance’s family is Assemblies of God, but we go to a non-denominational Christian church together so we’re trying to figure out how to work around that!

4/9/09 @ 7:38 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Beagle (message) 1,381 posts, Bumble bee

@Sakoro: We haven’t decided what aspects we want to pull from Hispanic tradition just yet. Honestly it feels like up until now we’ve been so focused trying to get everything else squared away… I’m embarrassed to admit that the ceremony has fallen on the back burner. I think we will be meeting with my pastor at some point soon, so that’s when we’ll try to figure out a ceremony schedule and what elements we can include/ skip over.
@phruphru: We had thought about this also, but Mr. Beagle doesn’t have a church that he really belongs to..but it might be something to consider as we get more involved in planning the ceremony.
@MrsSl82be: That’s really neat! My family is from a small town west of Austin and everyone (Aunts, Uncles, Parents, Grandparents, Cousins) got married in the same church. I’m kind of sad that I’m breaking the tradition.

4/9/09 @ 7:58 pm (reply)

10.

Member

RinaRoo (message) 219 posts, Helper bee

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I am of Eastern European Jewish decent (I came to the US when I was and my boyfriend is a third generation Sicilian Roman Catholic(somehow all of his family 3 gens back managed to find and marry only Sicilians). We’ve recently started talking about getting engaged, getting married, etc and the very first thing that came up was - “well, where would we have the ceremony?” (There’s a lot more involved in this - family histories, personal believes but it’s too long to mention here) I’m glad you were able to work everything out!

4/9/09 @ 8:50 pm (reply)

11.

Member

Serya (message) 773 posts, Busy bee

I just tried to have a discussion about this with my guy about an hour ago! I was raised Catholic (by some VERY Catholic women) and am now a non-denominational minister and the guy is a Christmas & Easter Lutheran. I never figured this would be a big deal - but it seems he wants a full on, in the church he grew up in, Lutheran wedding. We’re going to have to pick the conversation up again later - I hit a total roadblock with him when I said I wasn’t comfortable with having the ceremony at his church. I like his minister well enough but I really feel that my feelings about this should have equal weight. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one going through this!

4/9/09 @ 10:34 pm (reply)

12.

Member

sefditz (message) 177 posts, Blushing bee

This is of big discussion with us too. Our wedding will be outdoors, so no need to incorporate our churches (though neither of us currently have a church home). However, I am Baptist and my FI is Catholic and Hispanic. We will be incorporating the lasso and coins (though the lasso will not have rosaries). Our favors will be Mexican wedding cookies. The biggest issue currently is who will marry us. Though I don’t have a home church, I have a close family friend who I have always wanted to marry me. My FI has no one in mind, except that his uncle is ordained to marry. Issue being—my family friend is a woman, and as a Catholic he doesn’t feel a woman should be in a “leadership” position and isn’t comfortable with her marrying us at this time. We’ll see how it works out.

4/9/09 @ 11:52 pm (reply)

13.

Bee

Miss Labrador (message) 1,822 posts, Buzzing bee

AH! I’m Lutheran too Beagle! We’re having a Lutheran ceremony because I’m really the more religious one (Mr. Lab’s family is Methodist but he really doesn’t attend church). He’s already been to my church and heard my pastor’s sermons and really likes him, so I’m glad we don’t have to worry about clashing. We’ve decided that we will raise our children in the Lutheran faith.

4/10/09 @ 2:18 am (reply)

14.

Member

karilynn6 (message) 99 posts, Worker bee

I’m a Lutheran bride with a Catholic groom as well. After a few days of us arguing between the Catholic and Lutheran church for the ceremony, we settled for an outside service. I had to take my FI to my Lutheran church to show him how similar the services were, and he was really surprised. After that, my FI decided that going with a Lutheran wedding would be ok, so my Lutheran pastor from childhood is performing the service. I know some of my FI’s family is disappointed that we’re not getting married in a Catholic church (or church at all), but there was no way to please everyone.

4/10/09 @ 3:25 pm (reply)