catholic ceremony dilemma

[mimzy]

so, we dove head first into planning and we hit cement pretty quickly.

my FI is catholic and it means a lot to him to be married in the catholic church which i totally respect. he really likes his priest, as do i, but isn''t a fan of his church ("it isn''t ''pretty''" - him). He wants to find a prettier church to get married in, which i am all for. I talked to his priest briefly and he said that he would be willing to do the ceremony at a different church downtown, but it would probably have to be on a friday because he is the only priest at his parish and wouldn''t be able to get back to our town in time to do the saturday nite mass. Okay, great - we can do a friday nite ceremony, that''s cool with us.

well, the one friday date that would work for us is jan 2nd, and i just found out that my uncle and his family (which i am very close with) will be out of town until late on the 3rd. sooooo.....

i talked with FI and he said that, as much as he doesnt'' like the idea, he said he would rather have a seperate catholic thing than have someone we dont'' know marry us. we talked about maybe doing a private catholic ceremony either before or after our regular ceremony, which my uncle who is a minister would do......but 1)i''m not sure if the priest would be down with this and 2)we both agree that it would be weird to get married before we really got married

I have NO idea what is possible in this situation and what isn''t. we have a meeting with the priest on tuesday, so i''m sure we''ll find out more than, but anyone else have any ideas? anyone have any experience with this type of situation?

 

[ponderer]

In my experience with the catholic church, everything depends on the individual priest. Some priests are very strict and others are very liberal in what they will and will not do. I would not be surprised if your ideas are not overly well recieved though, unless you priest is really laid back or you are very close to him. I find that weddings can irritating to ministers of all demnominations because alot of times the really meaning and importance of the marriage is lost when people become more concerned with things like seating charts and chair covers, than with spirtiual and emotional commitment occuring on such a joyous day.

If you get married by the catholic priest first it is called a wedding. If he marries you second then it is refered to as a convalidation. I really dont think there is a difference in the ceremonies ( I have attended both), except that you may already be legally married. You still are required to complete marriage preparation classes even if you are already married. For more info google: catholic convalidation.

I dont know of anyone who has been married and then immediately married again. (Unless the weddings were on opposite ends of the earth). My cousin eloped with his GF before going to Iraq and they had a convalidation ceremony on their first anniversary. It was exactly like a wedding, and many guests did not know they were already legally hitched.

You might be able to get a priest to co officiate your wedding with your uncle, if you dont get married by your FI''s priest. Im not exactly sure how this works and if this makes the marriage officially recognized by the catholic church or not, I think so... I have had a couple cousins do this when both the bride and groom felt strongly about their differing religions.

Anyway....Just ask, the worst he can say is no.....

 

[mimzy]

thanks for responding!

i know that our ideas might not be well received, and i can understand why they wouldn''t be. i guess we are bracing ourselves for the worst while hoping for the best.

we have talked about convalidation before, but it is important to FI that it happens immediately, and i couldn''t really find anything on if that was ever allowed or not (i can see why it wouldn''t be, but i guess you never know).

i guess we just have to wait until tuesday to get some answers. hopefully everything will work out