Weddingbee boards

Hi everyone, im new and I hope some of you can share with me your opinions on this topic, or help with some advice.

I was raised Catholic, Catholic school my whole life, attended church regularly, etc. As I entered college, I stopped attending church - but I still believe in the things I was taught, I have my reasons that I stopped attending mass (to those that are, please dont take offense, im simply trying to explain my position, thank you! :D )

My fiance's parents baptised him in a Catholic church, but for reasons unbeknownst to all of us, didnt decide to raise him Catholic. So he never went to church, recieved the other sacraments, etc.

I would like to get married in a church. It does mean alot to me as it is how i was raised, and I would like to have our wedding blessed in a Church. It would also mean alot to both of our parents. But I am having trouble finding a church who will marry us. I keep getting told that we have to be part of the parish. We both grew up on long island, but now live in brooklyn. we are planning to wed in long island - so even if i half heartedly joined a parish in brooklyn, that wouldn't help. Im afraid of saying that I dont have a parish because I choose not to attend. I am a good catholic, and a good person.

Finally today I found a church who will agree to meet with us. The priest said it wasnt a problem since i just moved and did not have a parish yet. I also told him of my fiance's baptism - and he groaned. he said to come in and we will discuss, but i feel like we are going to get sent away again.

I have to be honest, for the 18 years of my life that I was a very very practicing catholic, Im getting very upset that this is so difficult. we are very open for him to take classes, etc. and anything else we'd have to do. I dont understand why we arent being welcomed, and instead are being thrown around.

If this church doesn't work out, I am thinking we will have a non-church ceremony, but its really upsetting me cause thats not what I want to do.

Any advice would be appreciated!

also, we do not live together (and do not plan on until after marriage), but we have had sex. will a priest ask us if we'd had sex? i do not like to lie...will this also make us not be able to get married in a church? would a priest even really ask that??

he didnt groan cause he was baptised catholic, he groaned cause he was ONLY baptised - hadnt recieved communion, or been confirmed.

i guess if i cant get married in a catholic church, a blessing will do - but how do you do that? i have not heard of that. also, what is a non-denominational church? or, how do i go about finding one? the only churches i see have denominations.

yes, I did want a catholic ceremony in a catholic church. that is fine if we cant have a full mass, i suppose. i hope if thats the "deal" - that is it. that isnt so bad.

my fiance said he will recieve the other sacraments if he is required to do so - he pretty much said he will do anything. he's a great guy. i feel bad making him do that though.

so it seems like maybe its my diocese, huh?

i will probably give up. its really stressing me out and making me upset on levels that dont even have to do with the wedding.

im feeling kind of betrayed, to be honest ha. :/

Jacqi - I was raised Catholic, and I was raised in Catholic School and in a Catholic church, and in the church that i would like to get married in. I do not like to go to church for my own reasons which I choose not to discuss cause they are private, but they have no bearing on my understanding of the religion of the things i believe, or they ways i live my life or treat other people. I pray, i just dont pray in a church. There are plenty of Catholics who don't go to church, or don't go to church on a regular basis.

I didn't say I wouldn't join a parish. But we are getting married on Long Island - and I live in Brooklyn. You must join a parish in the place you live. Me joining a Parish in Brooklyn won't help. I will just get told the same things - that I have to be a part of the Long Island church's parish or I need a note of why I can't marry in my Brooklyn parish - and as far as I've been told "I dont want to get married in Brooklyn" is not a sufficent answer.

I called my parish that I grew up in and they told me that they are not my parish once I moved (even though I recently moved).

JoJo Bananas - I have no problem with classes, pre-cana, etc etc. its more the "finding a church that will marry us first" is where im having a problem!

Jacqi, I guess I just see Catholicism more about what I was taught then going to Church. I was always under the impression that how I treated people was more important then going to Church. and in that respect, I know many people who go to church every sunday who do not follow anything they are being taught in Church. It bothers me that those are the people who are good Catholics, and I am not. I guess thats what I meant when I said I felt betrayed, like I felt like I was living as a good Catholic, yet I am not being allowed to have a Catholic wedding.

by the way - thank you to everyone for your great advice!!!

@montiajb & Jacqi

thats what i thought too, but originally, i didnt understand that your parish was where you lived. I thought my parish would still be where i grew up, since i lived there my whole life - i didnt know i would have to change it. anyway, initially - i was telling churches that was my parish, since thats what i thought - and still i got told i couldnt marry there i had to be a part of their parish. they all said i had to have a written letter explaining the reason i couldnt get married at MY parish - and i was told that it had to be something like "the church is busy that day" or "the church burnt down" or something - no kidding, someone actually said that to me!

Monitajb, you're totally right. about the church wants you to go to church to recieve communion, i have to say I honestly didnt think of it in that way.

I will definetly keep in mind what you say - I don't think it is a bad thing to think about at all, Thank you.

Hello!

Have you looked into convalidation?  This is not the route to go if you are a practicing Catholic and wanting to precribe to their doctrine.  However, often times fallen away Catholics end up going this route after they get married, because they then realize that their marriage was not official in the eyes of the Vatican for one reason or another.

If it is something that really is bothering your heart, maybe you aren't ready in this place in time to fully embrace a Catholic marriage as they prescribe.  Fallen away Catholics can get married outside the church - it will not be recognized by Rome until you validate that marriage however.  You only get married once in theory - so Catholic Convalidation is a smaller less pompous rite where the priest recognizes your previous marriage in the eyes of the church.  Depending on your diocese, they can go about this in different ways - and they will likely still want you to do the Pre-Cana prep work.

If you want to get married in the Catholic church right out the first time, you have to bend to their doctrine.  That is part of being Catholic and buying into everything that they believe.  But if it is important to you then you'll make it work for you.  You also have to bend to their nuptuals, which I personally think are a little antiquated and sexist in their language.

But, that's me.  And that is why I'm also one of those fallen away Catholics.  For me, it isn't important anymore.  For my mother - she threatened to cut out all wedding funding if we were not recognized by Rome.  Luckily for my Mr. and I, the older hippie priest down at my mother's church (in MD) is very much all right with us doing a convalidation due to our wedding location circumstances (in VT) because the Vermont diocese wouldn't even let us use a church or marry up there since we were not parishioners.  We had to go to Vermont to be able to have elderly family attend.  So, I'm content to (sort of) get my wedding my way, and then spend 15 minutes signing paperwork to make my mother get off my case.

Ok I'm back after reading more and delivering a package.

I was sort of in the same situation, but not.  Both the Mr. and I are professional musicians, and for the last two years I've been working for a Presbyterian church in D.C. and not going to Catholic services on sunday - he's been working at an Episcopalian church.  So, it had been since college since we'd actually gone (at least on a monthly basis) to mass.  I was at a loss as to who to talk to - but my very catholic MOH came through with some ideas.

We live in Virginia, parents are in Maryland, Long Island and Vermont, and we're getting married in Vermont.  Part of a Catholic Sacrament of marriage after reading a lot is the community and family embracing your devotion to the sacrament, and giving you their support.  We (with the urging of my mother) elected to do the wedding in Vermont because of more centralized family in driving distance.  If it were in Virginia where we lived, we'd have friends but no family, so that was important to the spiritual aspect.

I very much wanted an outside wedding since I was little.  This is a whole different battle that I could go into later but doesn't seem to apply to you.  However, we applied to the Diocese of Burlington.  After talking to them, and to the local priest around our general site, they all came back with a firm "NO" in regards to us getting married there - we couldn't be officiated by their priests, we couldn't use their building with a donation and have my deacon cousin officiate, we could do zero Catholic proceedings in Vermont because we were not parishioners of a Vermont church, nor was Mr.'s Italian father.  There went that option.  My mother was stupified.

Mr. and I both live together as well for economic reasons.  I looked into the local church that I was assigned to by my address, and it is a group of Catholics who meet in an elementary school (the development is about 5-6 years young, so they haven't built a new church here).  That priest was friendly enough, but I was not very happy with the fact that it was an elementary school.  Nor did I like the idea that my mother was trying to tell me to get "really married" down here in Virginia with like 5 people there, and then have my "big fat fake wedding" with family in Vermont.  I cried over this a lot and drank a lot of wine, because I only plan on getting married once - and this to me was telling me that everything I wanted and what my family was going to share with me was "fake" and not my real marriage.  Not a happy girl.

Tradition holds that Catholic weddings are often in the parish of the bride's family.  So, my mother (who was the big stinker on this the whole time) finally got off her butt and talked to her Priest in Maryland.  This guy is great.  He got into the church in the 70's when they were more liberal than they are now, and is very laid back and liberal and accepting.  He's borderline Episcopalian in his views, which is great for me.  He told me to relax, not stress out, and that he will take care of my mother.  Weddings should be a time of love and joy, and not flipping out about technicalities, and he applauded me for trying to make sure that my 96 year old grandfather and other family could be there to share with me.

He and I came to an agreement to have an Episcopalian Priest officiate in Vermont.  I talked to the Priest in VT, and she is happily on board.  The Catholic Priest then also told me that after we have our ceremony in Vermont, to come back down and he will take care of the convalidation.  So this pleases me, because I can get the ceremony and location that the family agreed upon, and pleases my mother because a Priest is telling her that convalidation is still ok with God, and I can go on my Honeymoon and "not be living in sin" with my "Relatives gossiping".  I reminded my mother that both the Mr. and I already live together, and she helped us move in, so we were already living in sin.  Ah, the dichotomies of life.

This is going to work for us.  It may not work for you.  But, a few things I think you could do:

1) Do a Friday night small Catholic service, and have your big outdoor or whatever wedding on Saturday with family.

2) Go to church in Brooklyn and make friends with your Priest.  Get him to file a dispensation form for you to be married outside of your Parish.  This is more difficult with two Catholics than it is with a Catholic and a Christian.

3) Do whatever you want, however you want (possibly in an Episcopal church if you want to be in a church).  Then go back later before you have children and get your marriage convalidated.

4) Find what makes you happy.  I've gotten a little better at putting my foot down and saying "no" to family.  This really is my wedding, and if I did loose $10,000 of funding, then I'd have to get a lot more crafty.  But 25 years down the road, what are you going to look back on and remember?  Regretting not doing what was meaningful to you?  Hopefully not.

interesting thread youve got here! 

im sorry youre having so much trouble with this issue. im not sure but i think i read somewhere in one of ur responses in this thread that you come from a miliatry family?   my fi and i also both come from military families - and he himself is now in the navy and is currently deployed.  we havent officially called/visited churches yet although i imagine explaining our situation wont be easy.

we live together in jacksonville,fl but while he is deployed, im back with my family in west palm beach (4 hours away in south fl).  we're holding our wedding in orlando because its smack dab in the middle of my two cities AND since both of us have lived all over the world, our guests will literally be flying in from all over the world (over 75% of our 150 guests) and we figured it was the most convenient (international-airport wise) location for everyone. 

with that said, we knew we wanted to marry in the catholic church - we both are registered with a parish in jax and attend mass every sunday.  now that im back home, im back at the parish where my fam goes.  we didnt talk to our priest once we got engaged ... instead, i did research online as to how to go about marrying in church - mainly because we didnt think it would matter since we're marrying in another diocese.  plus we're not particularly close with our priest. 

we took the FOCCUS test and did the engaged encounter weekend - both required for marrying in orlando and are at the next step of talking to the priests and looking for a church. 

i received all the major sacraments so far - although i did get baptized in a small rural town in the philippines and my mom no longer has a record of it - but i think ill be ok since we have copies of my 1st comm and confirm record.  im concerned about my fi - he has been confirmed but does not have records to prove - tracking it down will be difficult since he was a miliatary brat and moved quite often,  as for the other sacraments, he was never in one place long enough to complete ccd to receive 1st comm and confirm.  however imsure that issue would be cleared up by a priest.  im thinking RCIA.

its difficult planning at the moment and gearing up to talk to a priest because my fi is deployed right now.  i know churches on base are very flexible and understanding as far as the needs for their servicemembers - they realize the regular attendance of church might not have been easy and are willing to work with those who want to have the kind of ceremony youre looking for.  if you two are military-affiliated, holding your ceremony at a base church might be an option. 

i dont know if i helped at all with my offtopic two cents but i think actually being face to face with a priest and putting it all out there for dicussion is the best way to get answers!

good luck and please update us on ur progress!