Weddingbee boards

Hey hive!

FI's mom mentioned something to him yesterday that might be a problem for us. We are looking to have our ceremony at the college we both graduated from. It is a Catholic school and they have a lovely chapel on site.

FI would like his older brother to be his best man. However, FMIL is concerned that the Catholic church would not allow his brother to sign the marriage certificate as a witness since he has been divorced and remarried. Should we be concerned? Neither FI or myself had ever heard anything like this, only rules regarding divorce for the bride and groom - not the wedding party.

Does anyone know if this might be the case? Will they actually check for this kind of thing? If it is, could he still be the best man but we just have one of the other groomsmen sign the certificate?

I plan on checking with the church, but they are closed for summer vacation (must be nice, haha) for another week or so, and I was hoping someone here might know.

I figured this might vary based on parish, lol.

Some more details. FI is Catholic, but I am not. The best man is Catholic, but the maid of honor is not.

I'm hoping that since this is a college chapel, they will be more flexible. They have alumni from around the country come back to be married here, and there are a lot of non-Catholic alumni (like me!). They don't seem as strict as some of the things I've read about on the boards here, so I'm hopeful we're worrying over nothing!

Cool, thank you guys for your input. I wasn't too worried, but I'd feel so badly for FI if his brother couldn't be best man. Once the chapel is back open from vacation, I'll ask about special requirements, but I won't get into the specifics. No need to cause ourselves any trouble!

No, I don't think there would be any problems with signing the certificate.  I would think the only issue would be making sure that the bridal party knows that reception of communion is reserved to Catholics in a state of grace.   I would assume that the priest would inform them at the rehersal though. 

Hive - thanks for your help! I wanted to follow up and let you know how it turned out.

We went to the church tonight and met with our priest. It was fantastic! He said there should be no problems at all with this. Being a witness is more of a legal matter and he's not looking to have the church regulate that. Really he said, 'if no one asks, I'm not gonna tell. My brother was divorced but I still got to be a priest!"

On a related topic, I'm having a traditional High Latin Mass for my wedding. I found out the other day that I need to find 5 altar servers trained in the traditional rite:  1 MC (I'm thinking that means Master of Ceremonies), two accolytes, one thunifer (holds and swings the thing containing incense) and one cross bearer. I also need to make sure we can get the cassock and surplus which is what the altar servers wear.

In the old rite it took a year's worth of training to be an altar server.  Thankfully my parish used to have a traditional latin mass (not too long ago) so I'm looking to ask the parishioners who used to attend that Mass if they know who was assisting at our Mass before.  I also have a friend who only attends the traditional Mass and said she'd help.

I'm also looking for a schola to do Gregorian chant.  I just emailed a director of music ministry who heads a schola and got an email back just a couple hours later saying he may be able to help.  If there is a good male voice, one of them may be able to chant the Epistle, though our priest said he'd chant it if not.

Things seem to be going together.  I hope all comes together to make a beautiful service, else my fiance' is pretty insistant he wants a Low Mass which means a Latin Mass with no music.