Hi everyone! It's my first time posting here and I'm hoping to get some advice. Sorry in advance that this is so long!
My FH and I live in a small town with two Catholic churches. Neither of us are from this area so we don't have a super personal connection to either church. For about three years, we occasionally attended the smaller one because it was closer to my apartment at the time. We've since moved and our new house is literally walking distance to the larger parish. We still generally attend the smaller parish and it's a little more casual so we can show up in jeans and no one blinks an eye. We have attended the larger parish though on days when we have a tighter schedule and don't have time to drive across town.
A Catholic wedding ceremony is important to us and our families so without thinking about it... I reached out to the smaller church about having our ceremony there. From my first phone call to the office, is was pure confusion and miscommunication. It took me a month to set up a meeting with the "sacrament coordinator" because she wouldn't call or email me back despite my multiple attempts. Looking back, that should have been a huge red flag. We continued to proceed and with planning and selected our date in Oct. 2019. Over the past two months... there have been other issues and we decided we're not comfortable having our ceremony there. I don't think they host weddings often and with all of our family coming in from out of town, we want a smooth process and don't want to worry about anything when it comes to the ceremony. The church won't even allow our wedding planner to coordinate or help organize the ceremony.
We recently decided to reach out to the larger parish just to see what their process is like. We recently met with the wedding coordinator and felt SO MUCH more comfortable. She was so sweet and so eager to help us. We got more information in five minutes with her than we got in previous meetings with the other church. In my heart I know we need to move our ceremony - as long as they have our date open and a Priest is available.
My question... what is the most polite way to essentially cancel our ceremony at the other parish without offending them or upsetting them?
