Any Catholics feeling guilty?

@wwmp I was pretty surprised too. I know it's not just us though because this particular church also denied my coworkers daughter for the same reason

@sass hahah! That's a good meme.

@BeachBride, I think you have a really traditional priest. My priest was willing to marry us, but I didn't want to fight that battle with the FILs

Are those the only two Catholic churches in your area? I'd maybe go a little further to at least meet with another priest, but if those were my two options then I wouldn't feel guilty. As long as you aren't planning to baptize your kids Catholic I don't think you'll have an issue... I do believe the marriage needs to be recognized by the Catholic Church for a baptism to occur but if that is your plan is find out more and if it's not I wouldn't worry.

Nikki, I'm in your head. In your bushes. Now I'm in your kitchen! I'm everywhere!!

Wait wine? I want some!

I'm not Catholic and neither is FH so I'm probably not completely answering your question but we were both raised Baptist and we feel zero guilt for not getting married in a church. We both believe in God and identify as Christian, but neither of us feel any sort of burning desire to go to church for a multitude of reasons. My dad constantly tries to guilt us into finding a "church home" and gave us major side-eye when I said I didn't care whether or not I got married in a church. I just tune him out. I don't think you should feel guilty at all...you and FH are adults who are capable of having your own opinions and making your own decisions.

I was raised Catholic, but am now agnostic and my FH is an atheist. Both of my parents are devout Catholics and they were happy when we chose to get married at a winery. Don't feel guilty! It would be different if your FH was more of a practicing Catholic. Maybe you'd like a bigger church or a Cathedral to get the same feeling as a big wedding? At the end of the day, marriage is a commitment to each other, not to religion. :-)

I was raised Catholic, catholic school for 12 years (including an all girls high school!) I feel the guilt from my mother. I thought she was going to have a heart attack when I told her FH and I will be getting married outdoors, by our episcopalian priest cousin. For a hot minute I thought I should have a church wedding, then remembered I wanted to get married outside. It sounds like you want to be married in the church. Have you looked at the Catholic church's in neighboring towns?

If you don't choose to marry in the Catholic church, and later find the "Catholic guilt" lingering... there's the convalidation ceremony. http://togetherforlifeonline.com/wedding/convalidation/

I am actually attending one in a couple of weeks!

I am a confirmed Catholic but don't consider my beliefs in line with the Catholic Church, and we are getting married in the Methodist Church my FH grew up in. My grandma is not thrilled about it, and I have to admit once in a while I feel badly, because I attend Catholic Church semi regularly, and if we have kids I think we would baptize them Catholic by default. I definitely get where you're coming from because I feel Catholic guilt all the time, but I know God will be at our wedding and in our marriage as long as we commit to Him and to each other, and that helps.

Maybe you can find a pastor of another denomination to marry you at your non-church location?? I know a lot of people who did that!

Nope, didn't feel guilty. Infact I was at a church wedding two days ago and was so glad we didn't. They really are so long! Mind I do always like people watching when people go up for communion some of the dresses were fab! Lol

I was raised Catholic but was never confirmed when I was younger, and FH the same. We both aren't really heavily practicing now, I have more of a faith base then he does, so originally we were going to do an outdoor ceremony at our venue. About a month later, I started feeling guilty, I wasn't getting pressured by anyone, something just wasn't sitting right. So we talked about it and we decided to go through the classes of getting confirmed together, and get married in the Catholic Church. I figure, we might not be that religious now, or go to church every Sunday, but what if that becomes important to us later on in life? What if one day down the road I sat back and said, man I really wish we did that. I didn't want to have that. So now we are both confirmed Catholic and will be getting married in the church with a full mass wedding. I'm happy about my decision, FH tends to poke fun every once in awhile, when we have another meeting with the priest, but he was willing to do this because it was important to me. You still have time to think about it. Also, another idea, would the priest that you like come to your church where you have the deposit down already? So that way your marriage would still be "valid" through the church? I know when my parents got married, 30 years ago, my mom was baptized Methodist and my father a devout Catholic, she wasn't ready to change over yet, so they had their wedding in her Methodist church, with her pastor and my fathers priest, that way it would still be recognized.

Hmm that's quite strange. Catholics are allowed to get married in the church as long as one person is baptized and it sounds like both of you are. My sister and many of her friends work for the church in various states and this is the case all around; if you are baptized, you can marry in the church. My FH is not baptized but we are still able to get married in the Catholic Church because I am. You can even have interfaith marriages take place within the church, I just watched a wedding video that took place in a church the next neighborhood over from me and it was a Catholic woman and a Jewish man who married in the local parish. They even go over inter-faith marriages (including Catholic/Christian, Catholic/Jewish, Catholic/atheist marriages etc) in the FOCCUS testing and it's one of the questions you go over with the priest during marriage prep. So for them to deny you seems very strange to me. Unless neither of you are baptized, this scenario seems very very odd and I'm wondering if there is any information you've left out? Unless you or your fiancé flat out said you don't intend to raise your children Catholic, I don't see why they would deny you. You should contact your local parish again and try and clear things up with them. The Church's official stance is that as long as one party is baptized you are able to have a wedding in the church. This is literally the first thing our priest went over with us during marriage prep because he asked if we were both baptized. I couldn't imagine not getting married in the Church, I would regret it my entire life if I didn't, and if this is what you want or you feel you might regret it, you need to clear things up with your parish. Contact the diocese or the bishop if need be.

I am a practicing Catholic and FH was baptized (allegedly, no baptismal certificate can be found, nor can pictures), and we go to church regularly on the weekends together. We knew we didn't want a church wedding because of the distance of travel/location and because his family isn't religious at all and kinda rude about us being church goers, so we just didn't want to put up with it. We really wanted our priest or deacon to come do the ceremony at the location, but they refused. My father wasn't happy about the non-church wedding, so we are compromising by having the marriage blessed as a sacramental marriage in the church a few weeks afterwards. Could you maybe make that compromise?

I would NOT go with the priest who is rude. I really think that would add a level of anxiety to your day that you don't need, plus it would probably make your guests uncomfortable as well. I attended a Catholic wedding that had a priest who was ridiculously rude and all "fire and brimstones" and it was awkward!

@amanda we are actually raising our future children Catholic and have every intention of baptizing them. No information being left out. It depends on the individual church if they will or won't. This priest seems to be very strict and as I said has denied others for the same reason. It might be because we live on the beach in FL so he doesn't want destination weddings, I'm not quite sure. After we got the no, I didn't question him. Contacting the diocese is a good idea though.

They wouldn't let you do the shortened ceremony version without the mass? My FH is in the process of converting to Catholicism and will not be official until Easter so we are doing the quick version and aren't getting married at the alter. I don't see why it would be any different for a Catholic who wasn't confirmed and why they won't let you do that option.

@futuremrsC one of the Catholic Churches in town will let us do the shortened version, but I don't really like the priest there. The church that I attend/like won't even let us do the version.

I see. That's so strange that he wouldn't give you a reason! If you can muster up the courage to approach him again, you could explain that your children are being raised Catholic, you live in the area and are not a destination wedding, and that both you and FH are baptized. It sounds like he may have misunderstood your situation, or he may assume that you are cohabiting and/or having premarital sex which I've heard priests that have denied marriage within the church to people in their parish for those reasons. I wish I could help more! If you don't want to follow up with that priest to see why and/or if he is willing to reconsider, you might have some other options. Is there another parochial vicar at either church you could ask to perform the ceremony instead of the strict one or the one you don't like? If not, you should see if you can get a priest from a neighboring parish or one from a couple cities/towns away to do the ceremony for you. Or see if you can have it at a different church (besides the one where you don't like the priest...) outside the immediate area but not too far (within 25 min) of your reception venue. Are there any other churches in your area? We have three Catholic Churches in our neighborhood, each with at least 2 priests there so we had our pick. I'm not sure if you live in a big city or a small town, but it might be worth looking into if it's accessible to you. We are getting married out of our immediate area but bringing our priest with us; we also had the choice to have the local priest from the town we're having our wedding in perform the ceremony. So you may have some wiggle room if you are able to find a church in your area (like the one with the priest you don't like but ask if you can bring in a different priest from a different parish to perform the ceremony) or find a parish from a nearby city you like and is willing to do your ceremony. Or you could do as @Jackie said, appeal for your marriage to be blessed as sacramental after the fact. Good luck!

Could you ask the Deacon to perform your marriage at the other church? That's our plan if the priest we want isn't available.

@amanda the reason given was because FH isn't confirmed. Thanks! Maybe getting "blessed" after the wedding is what we'll have to do. I'm sure the rude priest will do that and at that point I won't care lol

ETA: I'm sure if I really pushed it FH would get confirmed but I don't feel right forcing him to.