The Search For The Church
June 30th, 2007 @ 10:24 am by Mrs. Radish
Once it was decided that we would have a Catholic wedding ceremony, the next step was to find a church that would marry us. This was much harder than I imagined, mostly because we are out-of-towners and Mr. Radish’s family is not from Syracuse either. My parents live there, but they don’t go to church. So because we are not members of any church in the area, and neither are any of our family members, it made it a little bit harder for us to find a church. I think that is the case with just about any religion, though, for out-of-town couples. I guess it only makes sense that they give their own parishioners preference.
Mr. Radish called just about every church in the area to find out if any of them had our date open and if they were willing to perform our ceremony. Many churches were already booked (over a year in advance, yikes!) and there were a few priests he spoke with who were very strict. And since Mr. Radish and I live together before marriage (a sin in the church’s view)… that was a bit of a problem for them. Eventually we found St. Matthew’s in East Syracuse, NY. It’s only a few minutes away from our reception venue and the priest there, Father Clemente, is very relaxed and didn’t have a problem with us living together or the fact that I’m not Catholic.
The Man Standing At The Altar
April 6th, 2007 @ 1:43 pm by Mrs. Lemon
We finally got to meet the deacon who will be presiding over our wedding ceremony this past weekend! I understand this might sound silly to those of you who are getting married at your local church or have a friend helping you out as an officiant, but for us, this was well needed closure to our first “wedding drama” incident last year.
You see, getting married to a Catholic boy when you’re not Catholic isn’t too difficult, but finding a priest who will marry you in your hometown (again, where your family is not Catholic) in an independent chapel is QUITE difficult. In fact, we couldn’t even reserve the date until we could find someone who could commit to helping us over a year in advance. Add to the mess the fact that the diocese was currently in search of a new bishop, which meant that no priests could be certain of their assignments over the next 18 months and no one wanted to commit to anything, and you’ve got quite the religious doozy.
Lead after lead failed us, and all hope of getting married in our chapel was almost gone until I got an email answer from Fr. Roy. He said that he’d love to help us find a “newly minted” deacon for our ceremony, and if for some reason something wacky occurred, he would step in and be our pinch hitter. Wow. Mr. Lemon made a special trip in the fall to visit and chat with him, but I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting him until this past Saturday.
A Few Choices Made
March 23rd, 2007 @ 1:46 pm by Mrs. Kiwi
As requested by reader Kris, I’m going to post some of the readings we have chosen so far. Although I know quite a few of you aren’t religious, I’m hoping we can really just see something lovely in these words, and not be cruel or judgemental. As I have said many times before, I am also not very religious, which is why I’m taking the readings so seriously. I’m going to run down the list of them, where they are from, and all that. The readings were chosen from the booklet “Together for Life”, something the Father gave us to choose from. I’m not quite sure if I may choose from another source, but this is what I have so far.
For our opening prayer, we have chosen:
Father,
hear our prayers for Kiwi and Mr. Kiwi
who today are united in marriage
before your altar.
Give them your blessing,
and strengthen their love for each other.
We ask you this through our Lord…
I chose this one out of four choices we were given. It seemed more about us being together, than about anything else.
227 Days and…
March 21st, 2007 @ 2:52 pm by Mrs. Kiwi
Regarding our new ceremony, I have sent out emails to my close family and friends - a sort of “heads up” if you will. As I’ve stated before, my family isn’t religious and hasn’t been to church in eons. So the email I sent said this: “Just to give you guys advance notice, Mr. Kiwi and I have finalized our ceremony plans. We are now marrying in a Catholic Church, the one Mr. Kiwi grew up in. We are trying to make the ceremony as personal as possible, which may mean verses from the bible, as well as references to God. We know that some of you aren’t religious, so we will try to have the ceremony be as painless (for all involved) as can be.”
Sending that email I was a little nervous, assuming I’d be judged. But the responses I’ve received so far have been amazing, and have clued me into some of the family histories. One of the most touching responses came from my brother, who is a world away in Sydney, Australia. He said that if people aren’t comfortable being in a church long enough to watch me get married, then they can just not come. Although we were raised the same, faith-wise, this touched me because he understood, and somehow protected me from all the way across the globe. I also received a response from his wife, my sister-in-law. She told me that she was a lapsed Catholic, and to not worry, everything will be okay. Turns out support can be where you never expected it from.
Let it Be- Settled
March 20th, 2007 @ 12:41 pm by Mrs. Kiwi
Yesterday we had our meeting with the Father. And… we’re going to be getting married in the church after all. I was given a book called “How to Survive Marrying a Catholic.” Seriously, they GAVE it me. Not only does Mr. Kiwi get to be the only family member to be married in the family’s parish church, but we even managed to get the Father to marry us earlier than the 11am usual.
As you all know, I was very nervous. In fact, my stomach was in knots. We were asked many questions, mostly about ourselves, and why we’re choosing to marry the other person. I must say, it was very nice to know why Mr. Kiwi wanted to marry me, even though I’ve never doubted it. When he said that I was the only person who makes him feel at home, I melted.
I think a big part of why I was nervous was my fear of being judged. Yes, this was incredibly silly, but nevertheless, I felt that way. Once we sat down and really discussed what we were there for, I felt increasingly at ease. We spoke of my lack of religion and why I would like to marry in the Catholic Church. He reminded me many times about how I don’t need to convert to marry there.
Questions to Ask
March 15th, 2007 @ 9:01 pm by Mrs. Kiwi
Hey Everyone. As you saw from my post yesterday about possibly marrying in the church, I have a meeting today with the Father. I’m very bad about meetings, I get flustered and tend to shut in on myself. So, I’m going to go with a prepared list of things the comments already made me think about, like these:
What is the dress code for the ceremony? May I wear a strapless dress?
What are the rules for rose petals (even though I don’t really know if I want them)?
How about aisle decorations? What can we do/not do?
What types of classes will we have to take prior to the wedding, and why?
Open Question: Catholic Weddings
February 2nd, 2007 @ 12:20 pm by Open Question
We are both Catholic (one of his relatives is actually a priest and wants to marry us). However, to save money, I wanted to have an outdoor ceremony at our reception location and it’s always been a dream for an outdoors ceremony. I know it is pretty strict that if both parties are Catholic, they have to get married in a Church. But is there any way to get around the whole Church thing? (We aren’t strict Catholics - we go to Church maybe once a month). Like if we had a civil service prior and then an actual ¢¢â€š¬…”ceremony¢¢â€š¬? outside, would that work? I’m just not sure how we’d get around his uncle being a priest.
dos
