Catholic wedding advice?

abi-em-mum83

Hi me and h2b are getting married 2013 and have both said we would prefer a religious ceremony. I am Catholic, and h2b has never actually been christened, although his family are, like mine, quite religious. Neither of us attend church. When we booked our venue we got a list of retired ministers who they reccomend for conducting ceremonies, but they are all church of scotland reverends! I have e-mailed my venue to see if they have a list of catholic priests but a friend has told me that if its a catholic wedding it must be your parish priest that conducts the ceremony. Is this correct? We would go and ask at our local church but we dont want to offend by saying we dont believe you have to go to church every week to be religious, and my h2b wouldnt be able to attend services weekly before getting married, as he works.
Does anyone know the proceedure for catholic weddings in venues other than the church? We are in Scotland if that makes any difference!

wifeforlife

I wouldn't think you'd get a Priest to conduct a marriage ceremony outside of a Church. If its any help though, I'm Catholic and my H2B is atheist and we're having a ceremony minus the Mass in my local Church of which my Priest suggested, so I'm happy and H2B is ok with it not being overly religious for him.

kmmr

We are doing the same. Both of us are baptised catholics, but not practising, but I still wanted to be married in church. It's not a full mass, but a Liturgy of Wedding ceremony, which the priest said was appropriate. We also don't go to mass, and there was no attitude.

We had to do the pre-wedding course, which we were both nervous about, but it turned out to be really good. Practical, and a lot of time to think about why you are getting married, and a reminder of all the reasons you fell in love. And to talk about some things that you may have been avoiding (like money, cleaning, kids and in-laws!)

But a friend of mine in Sydney got married outside by some kind of 'freelance' catholic priest. It was a catholic wedding, but outside. I'll check with her and find out what type of priest it was!

seafarers_wife

we got married in scotland and if id wanted to get married in the church i had attended when i lived at home the preist wanted us to attend weekly for so many weeks before the wedding and also wanted us to undergo marriage lessons. this was his condition of us getting married in that particular church.

as far as im aware catholic priests will only marry you in a catholic church, anything outside of a chuch is classed as a registery/civil wedding i beleive (dont know the correct terminology) and needs a local registrar and the venue needs to be licensed for weddings.

gandy

okay here goes....

first thing if you want to get married by a catholic priest they will only perform the ceremony in a catholic church and not in any other venue.

If you are okay with getting married in your local church i would contact the priest this will let you meet him and gauge how receptive he will be to doing the wedding.

you don't necessarily have to be a member of the parish you want to get married in (lots of people get married in my home parrish where i got married just because it's closer to their reception venue) but ideally it's up the parish priest if he's willing to marry you.

if your partner isn't catholic and a good portion of the guests won't be then you can have a wedding service without the main mass part (consecration of body and blood and then communion after).

you will probably also have to do a pre-marriage course (your priest will let you know how to go about organising this) as a pre-requisit to the ceremony taking place and you will also have to do a pre-nuptial enquiry with your priest (and get your baptism and confirmation certificate and also a letter of freedom from your local home parish where you were baptised and any other parish you've lived in over the last few years .... confirms that you've never been married in any of them)

a good website (even though it's for northern ireland) is the Accord website here. which gives you the checklists of things you'll need to get and do before your wedding.

had a quick look and accords equivalent in scotland seems to be Scottish Marriage Care, website is here

but the first thing you really need to do is find out the details of the catholic church and parish priest in the area you want to get married and see if he will meet you both and would be willing to do the ceremony.

good luck, hope everything works out for you.

abi-em-mum83

Hi thanks heaps for that! We are on a really tight budget and booked our venue and paid deposit already, and its for ceremony and reception, plus I couldnt afford the travel costs. We are still able to have a religious ceremony, and since we wouldnt be having the full catholic mass anyway as only one of us is christened,in we arent missing out on anything. I hadnt realised a church of scotland minister was able to marry any denomination, anywhere! We have booked a lovely retired minister (although while he is lovely he does remind me a bit of Ted Dansons crazy priest in Three Men and a Little Lady!!lol) he has sent us out a an information sheet which outlines the vows (almost identical to the catholic one we'd of had) and suggested hymns and readings.
Unless you are an active member in your church it can be so confusing to know the proceedures for getting married!

kmmr

One minor thing - don't forget that you need to do the civil stuff too. In England you have to register at the council too - and pay for a registrar person who will formally... well... do something at the wedding.

At our wedding someone is approved to confirm the civil part of the process, but it has to be done in advance in the registry office.

abi-em-mum83

kmmr wrote: »

One minor thing - don't forget that you need to do the civil stuff too. In England you have to register at the council too - and pay for a registrar person who will formally... well... do something at the wedding.

At our wedding someone is approved to confirm the civil part of the process, but it has to be done in advance in the registry office.

Yes, we got instructions on what we need to do from the minister, we have to fill out the Marriage Notice Forms from the registrar at the council 6 weeks before the wedding, then in the week before the wedding we need to collect the marriage schedule from the registrar and give it to the minister. Within 3 days after the wedding we need to return the marriage schedule to the registrar, and thats it, we'd be legally married!!