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I have heard over and over again how complicated it is to get married in the Catholic Church. We somewhat experienced this, but later realized, it’s probably only hard if you don’t regularly attend church or are marrying outside your own church.
It literally took us months to find a church in RI that was willing to marry us. We had to agree that our hometown church would sign off on the paperwork, which we were worried about since we no longer attend on a regular basis. We kind of pushed this off for a while. But when we did start the process, we met with the pastor at my childhood parish.
He was so welcoming and friendly. I explained that I had attended the church growing up. He didn’t really ask too many questions. He let us know he’d help with whatever we needed. All he asked was that we start attending regularly and stay for the entire mass. His biggest pet peeve is parishioners leaving after communion, which is about 2 minutes before the whole service ends. That’s a pretty small requirement after all the troubles we were expecting.
After the meeting, we left with a big sigh of relief. All we had left to do regarding the church was to sign up for and take pre-cana, then have the priest write the letter to our church in RI. After that, we’ll be all set. Things look like they are going to work out!
Did you have to jump over any religious hurdles for your wedding, or was it a relatively smooth process?
Smooth process for us.. At lease that’s how it felt like for us. We’re having a Christian Wedding. (Baptist to be exact). We did have to join the church first, in order for that we had to both be saved which we were and get baptized in water immersion as a symbol of our faith. We also couldn’t live together which we were so we decided for me to move out and back with my parents. Oh yeah and start marriage counseling which was such a blessing and we learned so much!
Yes…. OMG. I’m getting married in a catholic church in Los Angeles. The church we are getting married at requires us to take a test. Lol yes a test about eachother to see where were are agreeing and need to work on things! We also have to meet with the priest three times before the wedding. Me and FI both have to have two people come in and sign for us that we are getting married of our own free will. We’ve have to sign a few other documents and get a letter from my chuch ( that unfortunatly couldn’t marry us) to say we were in good standing. Its alot of work!
We had similar worries about getting married in the catholic church. We’re able to get married in the church I grew up in but since we’ve moved away I was worried it would be more difficult. Big sigh of relief over here as well.
Is pre-cana the pre-marriage course? We ended up actually liking most of it - I hope you have a similarly positive experience!
Fairly smooth process for us. We are getting married in my hometown church, but taking pre-maritial counseling (required) at our current church. They are the same denomination though, so it was no problem. Also our pastor will be FI’s dad, who is from a third church, but again - all the same denomination, so all it takes is a phone call to the hometown pastor to make sure everything is okay. Phew.
While we’re getting married in the Episcopal church, we’re members at and are doing all the marriage prep with our Catholic church. Its not bad. haha I kinda appreciate that its not SUPER easy. I’m happy to put in the extra time and go through the process of preparing for the church wedding. If we didn’t, we’d just go courthouse-it, ya know?
Compared to all the work that is coming with the reception, the ceremony is a breeze!
Congrats on an easy church experience! I think it just depends on the parish…
I was surprised at how easy it was to set up our wedding at a Catholic church. Our situation was different from yours though: I attend church sporadically in Austin, and we’re getting married in my hometown church. We took our pre-marital class/counseling through the Austin diocese, instead of through a local church, which was MUCH easier. We’re also not doing a full mass wedding, so there were very few questions about how often we go to church, etc.
ours was smooth until our priest backed out on us. then we were left trying to find someone else in the church who could do the ceremony - all the other people left were busy too. we ended up using a priest from Sudan and a deacon who was about 80 years old.
We had to take the FOCCUS test too, and meet with our priests and deacons a few times, fill out paperwork regarding the sacraments, and go to the engaged encounter weekend retreat.
These things didn’t bother me that much though. They actually made sense because they were about getting married rather than being all about planning a wedding.
Our paperwork took a while. We were married Catholic also. We got married in my hometwn church that by parents still attend. We were married by my husband’s uncle who is a priest in Lithuania. My Husband and I atended different parishes. We did Pre Cana at his parish which was pretty involved, several meetings with the priest, Engaged Encounter Weekend, FoCUS test and meetings with older couples in the parish that discussed different aspects of Marriage. It was a lot of Paperwork with all the different diocese and Parish’s involved. The WV bishop even got involved with approving his Unle to say Mass. Thank heaven is Uncle is a Monsignor which helped.
We also had a hard time with the Catholic Church, my church does not have any weddings after 2pm so it was ruled out immediately so we went looking for other churches. Each of them required we have permission from our church, but our deacon could not meet with us for two weeks (my FI is not Catholic and has been really frustrated with the waiting). We finally met with him and had a very difficult time contacting all the other churches, most of the wedding coordinators are also the pastor’s secretary so super busy. When we finally found our place, the deacon there told me to calm down and don’t rush anything, but we were a day away from 6 months til the wedding and the church asks that you have everything set 6 months ahead. There was too much waiting, but the priest who is going to marry us has been the best, he’s our age and studying in Rome right now and has been so helpful with calling and emailing to get permission. If it weren’t for him, I would have gotten disgusted with the process.
We’ve had a pretty smooth process so far :). We’re getting married in my church and the Mr has met my pastor a few times
Our experience was awful. I am Catholic, he is not. We started the process, found a great church we loved, with a great priest.. started councling, and even filled out all the required paperwork, filled out the online 27.5 page survey…
Then one day while talking with our priest, we talked about my FI’s divorce. He was married when he was 21, for about 18 months.. he was Christian, she was Jewish & they got married at the justice of the peace.
He was taken aback, he said, well unfortunately you can’t get married here until he gets an annullment. Which previously I had only assumed was for people who were married by the Catholic church and wanted to remarry in the church, but he said that’s a thing of that past.. and not to plan our wedding, cause it could take up to 18 months to get figured out..
I was crushed. We ended up finding a Methodist church who would marry us. With a hefty price tag, unfortunately. It was a much longer, more drawn out process.. but we found this out 9 months before the wedding. Not fun.
Now we will just have our vows read in the catholic church once his annullment is processed.
We had a few issues - #1, want to get married at the chapel of a catholic college neither of us attended (but we had family ties to the chapel); #2, he is not Catholic; #3, we live together; #4, have not really been a regular at church for some years
I was terrified these would be major issues. But the college said yes, as long as I got a letter from my church. My church ended up being really cool about the whole thing. Yes, we attend Mass regularly now, but other than that we just had to meet with the deacon and fill our some paperwork.
I had the same experience. I have moved a few times since I graduated from undergrad and never really thought about joining a church- I guess I still think of the one I grew up in as “my church.” Even though I live 6 hours from my family, I go home fairly often. I am catholic and fiance is not. When we met with the priest we are planning the wedding with in February (wedding in July), he told us about needing to get permission from my church in Indiana. One problem, I didnt have a church in Indiana. I freaked out…the priest who will marry us in Ohio told me “this could jeopordize the whole wedding.” umm…You do not tell a bride who has deposits on everything from the reception to the DJ to the flowers that something could jeopordize the wedding!!! I spent a few weeks being nervous (ok well, that might be an understatement, I almost had an anxiety attack at work) and playing phone tag with a priest at the church I was planning to join in Indiana. When I finally got a hold of him, he said he had never heard about needing to get permission to get married in another Catholic church and he agreed to write a letter giving us permission. I had just joined his church a few weeks before and was only able to attend 2 masses due to work travel, he acted like it was no big deal and said “they have some crazy rules in Ohio.” I thought this was a Catholic Church thing, but he didn’t seem to know anything about it…I wonder if it is a diocese thing? Anyways, we just got done doing a pre-marriage evaluation online and will make an appointment to discuss it with the priest in Ohio who is marrying us and we still have to do the pre-cana in May. As far as I know, we are good to go now!
It has been interesting since Mr. Library is Catholic and I am Protestant. We have had to jump through a couple of hoops to get our marriage recognized by his church, but we found an amazing priest who was willing to work with us. Love him!
Ours has been easy so far. Thankfully my God-Father is a Monsignor in NY and the church I went to growing up is totally cool with him performing our ceremony there even tho he presides over another church (They also let him give me my first communion there so I figured it would be ok). But we are both Catholic and received all sacraments to date, and neither one of us has been married - I think these two things bring up the biggest issues for other couples.
We start Pre Cana next month. I really enjoyed our first meeting with my God Father too, totally put things into perspective and even tho we knew we wanted to be married, it completely affirmed it for us. And saying all of it out loud to eachother - they why’s and the how’s etc. gave this all so much more meaning even tho I didn’t think it was possible. I swear I loved him even more when we left
Reading all these comments confirms it in my mind how some priests can be quite nice about the whole thing, whereas others can make you go through all of these hoops / create additional unnecessary stress. We had a bunch of meetings with our priest, and the idea of having a destination wedding was just so wild to him. Thankfully, he did complete all the paperwork, but both my fiance and I got turned off to the catholic church after all of this hassle.
Oh Lord, did we have problems. My mother insisted on a Catholic Marriage, although neither of us were too keen on it. Apparantly my Grandmother will roll in her grave if that is not made so.
I was confirmed Catholic and then fell away, FI was baptised Methodist I think. But we are church musicians - we go where the money is as bad as that sounds. Music majors have to eat, and church jobs are a 1/3 of our income.
Problem is, my parents are in MD, we live in VA, his Mom is in Long Island and his Dad is in VT. FI and I are both church musicians for work, so I’ve been getting paid by the Presbyterians for the last two years, and he the Episcopals. Haven’t been to Catholic church since a fistful of masses in College.
We are getting married in Vermont so more of my older family can make it. The Diocese up there would not let us get married since we are not parishioners. His Dad asked the local priest if we could have my deacon cousin officiate and use the building. Nada.
I looked into getting wed in our zone down here in Virginia. Sadly, the “church” for my zip code is held at an Elementary school. I’m so not getting married in an elementary school, although the Priest was nice. I’d have to attend Saturday mass anyway to accomodate my church job.
It was looking glum. He and I were not happy about Pre-Cana and didn’t want to get married Catholic anyway, but my mother threatened to pull out her $10k that they are using to help pay for the wedding. I told her that if she wanted this so badly, she needed to go talk to her priest too after a month and a half of me doing all the work for something she wanted.
Luckily, her Priest is baller. Dude is kind of an old hippie Priest from the 70’s. He knows the circumstances with my 96 year old Grandpa in VT and how family is important, and how you only get married once. My mother was trying to convince me to have my “real wedding” in that elementary school with like 3 people there, and then go up to Vermont for family. God forbid if the family gossip about us going on a honeymoon when we were not “really” married Catholic. Priest thought that was kind of silly, and I agreed.
So we came to the compromise of doing Convalidation. We’ll be having a lesbian Episcopal Priest (which I am elated about, since FI and I are very pro-same sex marriage) do the ceremony in Vermont. That makes me so very happy, because she is very open to making the ceremony how spiritual we want.
After that, we’ll go down to MD and sign the paperwork for Catholic convalidation. 15 minutes, in and out. Ship it off to the Pope, and my Grandmother can rest at ease in her grave.
It was a hassle, but yeah. If you want to do Catholic you have to go by their doctrine.
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Mrs. Starfish, Boston/Newport Age and Occupation: 25, Operations Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Sales Engagement Date: October 8, 2008 Wedding Date: October 2010 Venue: The Atlantic Beach Club About Me: I'm a perfectionist who is a planner at heart. I don't do well with surprises. I love planning, crafting, Newport RI, family and friends, and most importantly, Mr. Starfish---all of which will be big components in our October wedding in our favorite little city by the sea.
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