Weddingbee Blog

Back in February, Mr. Funnel Cake and I were preparing to meet a priest in the evening to try and set up our marriage-preparation course here in Zürich. These kind of courses are required all over the world by anyone wishing to get married in the Catholic church, and it is no different for us, despite the fact that we are planning the wedding in my hometown church in America.

Personal photo

Now, Mr. Funnel Cake and I were both raised Catholic and have completed all of our normal sacraments* (first communion, baptism, confirmation, etc.), but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are weekly churchgoers. To be honest, we are more the Christmas, Easter, and birthday churchgoing people. It works pretty well for us—we have a common faith and we both like to go to church the same amount.

I did feel a little guilty, though, because we didn’t necessarily want to admit to the priest that we go to church so rarely. Mr. FC wasn’t very excited about the idea of spending his weekend with a priest he doesn’t know very well, listening to someone unmarried lecture us about what marriage is about. And it’s complicated by the odd fact that we are already legally married. So it felt a bit like planning to study the coursework for a degree you have already received, if you get my drift.

Image via Kandle

I thought it would probably be beneficial to talk about some of the issues they bring up at marriage-preparation courses because Mr. Funnel Cake is not always keen to talk about things in detail if they aren’t relative to us. Kids? He really doesn’t want to talk about them if I’m not pregnant, which he sure HOPES I’m not at the moment! Life insurance, accidents, death? But we’re healthy! It’s a non-issue, he’ll say.

If it’s something unpleasant or uncomfortable to think about, you can bet Mr. Funnel Cake would rather be planning our next holiday or reading a book. He would rather not dwell on something that’s not affecting us at the moment, whereas I am the opposite, asking “What if…?” or “What would we do when….?” This can irk him to no avail, but it was very important for me to know where we stood on some key issues (such as children, and whether he would ever want them) when we were dating. I like to know we’re sort of on the same page, even if the page I’m thinking about is several chapters later.

What were your thoughts and concerns about marriage-preparation courses? Did anyone decide to attend prep classes when it wasn’t required?

*At this point I became nervous that maybe Mr. Funnel Cake hadn’t done all of his sacraments, so I texted him to check, and he assured me he is a good Catholic boy. Whew!