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We are having our ceremony on a Friday night and we are having a full Catholic mass. Is there a reason why you can't have a full mass on a Sunday? I'm a little confused, as well.
I'm not Catholic but my fiance is, and we are getting married in a Catholic church. SO since I'm not Catholic we aren't doing a full mass. We got our wedding planning sheet and really the only difference is we don't do communion. But all the other parts are the same and totally 'official.' so i wouldn't worry about that. its all a matter of what you prefer and feel is best for you. you will still have the same vows and everything else. so do what you want to do, if a Sunday works better for you then go for it!
Also, not having a full mass won't make it any less "official" as I understand it. We were given the option by both our wedding coordinator at our church and our priest of having communion or not. Since we are both Catholic, we decided to have a full mass. But do what works best for you and your FI.
It won't be any less official - we're not doing a full mass because my fiance is not Catholic. Both ceremonies are fully recognized by the Catholic church.
If its super important to you to have a full mass, you should probably consider sticking with Saturday so you have the ceremony you want...but if it doesn't make a huge difference and the money is a big concern, I think the scaled-back ceremony on Sunday is a great option too (your guests might even appreciate it if its slightly shorter! Catholic ceremonies are notoriously long...)
If you are BOTH Catholic, this is my opinion... and it's something close to my heart...
YES, do a full mass. This is one of 6 receivable sacraments in your life, you and your spouse to be are joining together with God in a mirror image of the trinity... while you are the ones who perform the sacrament, it's an amazing way in which we come together just as Christ loved his bride the church. Christ gave his bride the ultimate gift, himself. Every time we celebrate mass, we are celebrating the ultimate marriage. Every time we "make love" we will be renewing our vows just as Christ does with his church at every mass. We have the chance to receive that gift every time we go to mass, and in the case of our wedding where we are coming together in mirror image of him, how can we not invite him? I honestly CAN'T imagine not allowing Jesus to be physically present at our wedding, since we have the opportunity too.
I'm surprised you're allowed to have it on Sunday at all!
Its not less official to get married without a Mass. In fact, the Nuptial Mass historically was meant for royality. That said, I think its great to have your own private Mass offered for the sancity of your marriage is wonderful. But overall its really up to you. Without the Mass, the ceremony will be shorter and any non religious relatives would probably prefer it. But religious relatives might wonder why you didn't have a Mass. It ultimately depends on how you value the Mass and what makes sense for your ceremony.
That said, my preference would be to have the Mass simply because the Mass is really the center of Catholic worship. Heck, if I could pull it off, I'd ask our priest to open the church up the night before for Eucharistic adoration. It'd be a wonderful way to calm my nerves and to place all my anxieties about the following day into the hands of God. But I feel the priest is already bending over backwards for us and I'm not sure how late the rehersal dinner will go..not to mention that we're waking up super early.
If you do have your wedding on Sunday, do make sure you make it to Sunday Mass whether its the vigil the night before or early on Sunday.
What about a friday? Most churches I know don't allow weddings at ALL no matter how short on sundays! lol.
Another thing to consider - at least in a nuptial mass, not completely sure of a ceremony... but, even without a full mass, the only thing left out is the Eucharistic prayers and communion. You still have readings, homily, our father, petitions, etc... If you were to have it on a Sunday, you may have to use that Sunday's readings...
We were given the choice to have our wedding ceremony performed within the Mass or outside of the Mass (but on a Saturday either way). I am under the impression that having your wedding outside of Mass does not make it less official in anway way. In fact, our parish suggests it for weddings when only one side of the family is Catholic.
We aren't having the full mass because I haven't had my first communion :(, so celebrating the Eucharist would be kind of awkward. I think it would be difficult to find a priest and church that would allow you to have your ceremony on a non-Saturday Our church does three masses on Sunday. I think the last thing our priest would want to do is ANOTHER mass.
Our church doesn't allow any services on Sundays because they are too busy already. They have five masses every Sunday and no time for any others! However, they do allow you to hold them any other day of the week as long as you arrange it in advance.
However, my FI's church is in a very rural area with a traveling priest who is only there for the one mass on Sundays, so weddings can be any day of the week.
Our church has about 5 masses on Sundays, so there is no way to have a wedding on that day. We are actually not doing the full mass, mainly because none of my family or friends are Catholic. I'm receiving my first Communion this Easter, but we thought having a full wedding mass where only his family gets to take part would distract from the fact that taking communion is about unity. Plus they would be uncomfy, knowing my family :)
We are doing a full mass. But not having one will not make it unofficial or less official.
I think we are doing a full mass, we are still making that decision though. We are getting married on a Saturday afternoon. It is really important to my mother to have a full mass, but FH doesn't want "a really long ceremony," so who knows where we will end up.
My best friend was married last August and did not have the full mass. It was still a very nice ceremony.
5 masses?! wow! We just have one at 8am! We are having a full Mass at 10am on June 5 :)
Sunshine1810 - Just so he knows, having a full mass only adds about 15 min. depending on the size of your wedding. Without the full mass you still do everything else except the consecration and distribution... might as well...
If you both are Catholic I would say do a full mass, you only get to do this once.
Thank you KLP2010, I agree. I think we will end up going with the full mass.
@ jojo bananas-- ok, so 2 caveats before you read the rest of this, 1. this is second hand, from my priest, who is great and does his job well, but I'm going to guess Canon Law is not his expertise, and 2. I'm sure not every priest will be on board, even if it's technically ok, but----- my priest said during our engaged couples' meeting that a non Catholic can receive Communion only at their own wedding, and only if that bride or groom truly believes that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ, not just bread and wine. He said it was a fascinating little bit of Canon Law, and I'd agree, it is fascinating. If a full mass is still intriguing to you, and it's not too late, I'd research it a little (don't just take my word and my priest's word) and ask your priest about it.
I have no idea why this is in italics and I can't seem to fix it. Sorry!
That really doesn't make sense at all from a Sacramental POV... hmmm... Did he say it was in Canon law? I'm intrigued to either learn that it's true or debunk it :-)
i wonder if that is the case for all churches, that just seems odd... i don't think it would be any less official though - do you just not take communion or something? we opted to not go the full mass route though - many guests are not catholic that are coming and we didn't want to make them sit through all of that. they said that it is still very similar though, so i wouldn't be worried. just do whichever you prefer :)
We are doing a full Nuptial Mass at 7 p.m. on a Saturday evening. My church does Friday night weddings, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening. My fiance is not Catholic so originally I was leaning toward the Nuptial service (sacrament without Eucharist). However it was really important to my family--and me--to have a full Nuptial mass, so that was what we are doing. About 75% of our guests are Catholic.
We are getting married on a Sunday with a full catholic mass. Our priest said we have to use the regular Sunday readings and can't choose our own. My friend got married on a Sunday a few years ago with a priest who was a family friend and got to choose the readings, but I figured that was because he wasn't up to speed with what he was supposed to do (getting a little older...).
Interesting bit about communion for a non-catholic--I"m curious whether it is true!
Me and my FI are both Catholic so we are doing the full mass. Our wedding is on a Saturday afternoon though.
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So I'm wondering, in terms of receptions/dinners, Sundays are cheaper than Saturdays. However, as it is, we're planning on having our ceremony at church on Saturday. Apparently, you can only have Nuptual masses on Saturday.
If we were to have it on Sunday, then we couldn't have the full mass. But I was just wondering, does having a non-Nuptual mass make it any less official? Should I consider moving my date to Sunday? I'm confuzzled.