I am a baptized and confirmed Catholic who has started to practice and attend church more relatively recently. My fiance is a baptist who plans to get baptized.
We would both like an outdoor wedding, but it is one of his biggest and main wishes for the wedding. We are also in the Los Angeles area. As a Catholic however, I've been reading that for the most part you have to have the ceremony in a Catholic church for it to be considered valid and a sacrament. He feels that because of this, his own religion is not being included and is not fully comfortable with that.
It has been a stressful process trying to figure out how to resolve this or come to a compromise. I would like to have my marriage recognized under God as a Catholic and he would also like to have his recognized as a baptist.
I have a few questions:
1. What are options for how this can be done? If anyone has gone through this experience or is currently going through it please let me know how you figured out the situation.
2. If it HAS to be in the church how can we also integrate his religion into the ceremony or have his pastor come and is that possible?
3. Also, is it normal to do a civil ceremony first and then get married at a later date in the church? In this case I would assume it's the convalidation process and how would that work?
5. At a church, are you able to say your own vows and personalize things or how does that typically work?
6. I am interested in asking a priest but recently moved and have not established a church I go to yet.
