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Help! Catholic Church Pre-Wedding Requirements?

  • I admit that I did start to plan my wedding way too late. However, better late than never I guess. My fiancés family is Catholic as is mine, so it made sense to plan a Catholic ceremony. However, neither of us or our families are active. I have only been baptized when I was small and I haven't done my first communion and all that. While I have been to weddings before, I was completely clueless as to the pre-wedding preparations for the church. I didn't think that it would be anything too complicated, but the father at the church near my house says it is. He said that we have to become active within the church community, I have to go through the catechism classes -is that what they're called? I'm not sure, sorry- and have my first communion. Then, I have to get new copies of baptism records of both of us, we have to give a "donation" of $1300 AND we have to go through a six month couples program before we could be married. I understand that there is a process and that we have to respect the rules. However, I don't have at least six months before my wedding, my wedding will be in the first week of November, I'm already on a tight budget and I was definitely not expecting to have to pay in order to go to church for about a half hour. The worst part of all this is that my fiancee is currently in the Marine Corps Boot Camp. therefore, he cannot help me with planning our wedding ( /cry) and nor would he be able to attend the couples' talks. I'm at a loss right now. My parents are helping us with the costs and just a couple days ago, my mother helped me find the perfect -and inexpensive!- dress. However, now because she sees how nearly impossible it will be for me to get married in the church at this time, she says to forget it and just buy a simple little party dress, go to the courthouse and then only invite immediate family to a buffet instead of having a reception at a banquet hall. I understand the reasoning behind that and I understand that this way we would save alot of money as opposed to having a reception and all that, but she got me so excited and hopeful with the reception and the dress that now I feel bad. I feel like she's down grading my wedding day a little. I had even picked out my bridesmaids and everything. I know she's paying for it and I'm very grateful that she's taking the time to help me with all this. I don't wanna be a bridezilla but how do I tell/convince her to still have a reception or something? All this happened because of how difficult m situation is to get married in the church right now. My main question is, Is there anything I can do to somehow make it all possible for me and/or go around the Catholic church's requirements? Thanks for your help and suggestions

  • Answer:

    Well, what your mom says does make sense. If you and he haven't been practicing Catholics - and so probably don't plan to raise your children Catholic - it makes no sense to get married in the Catholic church. And the reason there are all these requirements now - more than in the past - is to make couples realize how serious of a commitment getting married really is, and to prepare them for their life ahead.

Leticia at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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wow. you really don't get it. catholism is a way of life, not a rental company. you waited until now to see the priest when the wedding is november. the priest should have been the first stop, not the last stop. "i was not expecting to have to pay in order to go to church for half an hour." this leaves me speechless. there is a lot of behind the scenes WORK on the part of the church staff to have a wedding and they have to PAY air conditioning/ heating bills for a huge sanctuary for a saturday wedding. shame on you. most churches require 6 months of counseling ahead of time, with the preacher and if he/she doesn't feel comfortable marrying you, he/she won't. your mom's plan of the courthouse seems the most sensible, or you can go to a chapel like this http://www.heathersglen.com/elopement.html to have the whole shebang. edited to add: you and your sweetie are going to need to find a regular church home anyway. why not become active members of your church and get married later.

diamondcollector

Oh ferpetesake. You are not being disrespectful in the slightest! Requirements vary from parish to parish, and my sister didn't have to do that much to marry a Catholic, and she wasn't even Catholic. Here's what you have to work out for yourself. You say that you and your fiance are basically lapsed Catholics. So how big of a deal is it to have the wedding in a church? Is this for family members? If so, do they understand how this limits you? If I were you, I'd either try to find a non-denominational Christian church that might let you have the ceremony there (easier said than done) or else have an officiant perform the ceremony. When you're looking for the officiant, you can specify you'd like it to be as Catholic as possible, or at least contain important Bible passages. You do give up the Catholic church wedding this way, but it's the only thing I can think of that would let you put together your wedding and have the people you want there. And if you're not practicing, then this shouldn't be an issue for you and your fiance. You just have to get the families onboard with it. But since they're not active either, this shouldn't be difficult.

Messykatt

You haven't been disrespectful, just a little scatterbrained. Stay in the church and make it up later. (That thing they used to call catechism is now called RCIA if you're an adult.) I know they're stricter about who can be married as a Catholic than they used to be. The question is, how strict is strict? Go around to the other parishes in your area and see how they would handle things. If you're near the boundary of a diocese, check out the other diocese. The church encompasses a great deal of variation in its practices. If none of them can marry you in your present state, find a nice chapel that can, have a lovely wedding, and come home when you feel you can.

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