Making a Catholic wedding bearable?

Are you not Catholic? People can't take an hour out of their day to witness the most sacred moment of your lives?

Here's how to make it bearable: invite people who can handle it. Seriously. If your wedding ceremony is "unbearable" they really shouldn't have been invited in the first place.

SMH.

There are not many Catholics, so that will shorten it by the fact that there will not be 225 people taking communion. That would take forever.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I'm feeling exactly as you said @livelybride. I think that this question was more of a moment of weakness rather than second guessing what I wanted lol

Hey, your guests should consider themselves lucky! At my sister's wedding, there was a civil ceremony before the religious one. (That is required in Mexico, where she lives.) Both the civil and religious ceremonies were in Spanish, which my family does not speak. We had to travel two days to get there (one day to Fly to Mexico City, a second day to get from there to the remote village in which she lives). Our parents did not attend, but the parents of the bride were required to sign various documents, so my brother and I pretended to be her parents. (I'm only 5 years older than her, and my brother is only 3 years older than her, so this was pretty funny.) We were so unfamiliar with Mexican customs that my brother leaned over in the midst of the lasso ceremony and whispered, "Is that the Mexican bondage ceremony?" In the middle of the ceremony, the priest asked whether the families of the couple wanted to say anything. As I was trying to put together my 3 words of Spanish to say something, the mother of the groom started a long speech about how they would be walking with Jesus. I'm Jewish, and decided that even if I could manage the Spanish, I couldn't manage the Jesus, so I just backed out at that point.

On the other hand, my sister is still married, 32 years later. Just one more illustration of the fact that it's the marriage, not the wedding, that counts.

Wow the way everyone talks about Catholic Mass I thought they were like 3 hours. If they can't sit there for an hour they shouldn't be there. I hate when people say the reception is more important than the ceremony, it isn't.

I'm not catholic. The first catholic wedding I went to I took communion. Oops.

I cant believe people actually call a sacred place "unbearable", whether it is their religion or not. I am Catholic and having my ceremony in a Catholic church, but i would never think about calling another religious ceremony "unbearable".

if anyone were to call my ceremony "unbearable", then they don't need to show up, and frankly i wouldnt want them there.

If I am invited to a wedding, I assume that person is very special to me and I will respect their traditions because I'm not a 6 year old.

I was raised Catholic, and we are having a Catholic wedding mass. Most of my fiance's family is not Catholic. A couple things I have done: when members of his family ask how the planning is going, I use it as an opportunity to talk about the traditions we are including in the ceremony and what the meaning is behind them (his aunt had tears in her eyes after I explained the reasons behind some of the traditions!). We are also involving as much of his family as we can in the ceremony - some priests will allow a mix of Catholic and non-Catholic people to present the gifts, do readings, read the intentions; etc. All in all, if the mass is important to you as a couple, your friends and family can deal with the length of time and just use it as more time to reflect on the bigger (and wonderful) picture of the day - your marriage!

R, communion is not a necessary element in the sacrament of marriage. There are plenty of reasons not to do communion. I'm not, because FH and his entire family are not Catholic. I don't like the idea of having something in my ceremony that only half of my guests can participate in. My priest is totally on board and in fact suggests doing it this way when one of the people getting married is not Catholic. So your statement of "why bother getting married in a Catholic church" if you don't have communion was insulting.

To the OP: my advice is to have fun with the songs and the readings. I like the suggestion of highlighting why you chose the readings or things like that. You can pick some very beautiful songs for your mass. And, really, it is only an hour. People will be fine!!

RG some people really have NO clue what is appropriate at religous ceremonies, especially if they were not raised with religion. My FH had stepped into a church 1 or 2 times max before we met and had no clue how to conduct himself in a catholic mass since he had never been to one. He tried to get up for communion since thats what everyone else was doing but I told him quietly to hang back. He replied "That's okay I'm not hungry anyway" loud enough for the people around us to hear. Totally inappropriate? Yes. But he wasnt being intentionally ignorant, he was just clueless. You can't assume that everyone who walks into a Catholic church for a wedding will know what is proper.

R I went to my first catholic mass and wedding last year, while obviously, as a Jew, I wouldn't take part in communion, why do you say it shouldn't come as a shock? I'd never been to a mass before, how would I know what happens at one. You are also just becoming very contrarian and tough to communicate with..

OP - it's your wedding. People will come and sit through it because they love and respect you and your beliefs.

I am having a catholic wedding but not having the mass. It's still going to be around 45 minutes for the ceremony. So not too bad but seriously people should be able to sit for 45 minutes if they cant their loss

Tough sh!t. I'm having a full Mass with communion in the Episcopal Church. The only difference, that I really like, is that all baptized Christians are welcome to receive communion. Whereas in the Catholic church, I feel very left out because I'm not welcome at the altar. Time is not an issue.

Im not Catholic, but I am Orthodox and all of our services, including weddings, tend to be longer than other Christian denominations. Our weddings are an hour if you speed through it, but being that FH and I are very religious and love the hymns of our church, our wedding will probably be 1.5-2 hours long. Most of our guests also go to our church so they know more or less what to expect and knowing us it should be no surprise that it may take a little longer than usual. For us the service is the most important part of the wedding day and we didn't want to cut corners in it. Oh, and our service doesn't include communion, but there are still a lot of prayers and readings.

I say have your full Catholic mass and don't worry about it. Remember, this is what your wedding day is all about. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about it. I do encourage giving out programs though ( we are doing this), especially if you have a lot of non-Catholic guests. It helps keep people engaged and if they can follow and know whats going on, they'll be less likely to get "bored".

Karen, you're welcome at the altar for a blessing, just not communion as we don't see it as a symbol but as a sacrament.

I'm Catholic and am not having the mass I would love to have b/c my FH was raised a Jehovah's Witness. Though he is no longer a member, we agreed to have a non-religious ceremony. Anyone who can't "bear" to get through an hour of mass, shouldn't go. It's really not a hardship or a trial. If I were a guest, I wouldn't be moaning and groaning about attending the mass of a friend or relative who is getting married.

I've attending religious ceremonies outside of my own faith, and basic courtesy just tells anyone to sit and respect the other customs. So I'd say have the ceremony you're planning to have despite the opinion of others. Being there for you will make it more then bearable.

The people who truly love and care for you as a couple will endure, the rest will skip and show up at the reception for the booze. *eyeroll*

On a side note: I had a Catholic ceremony (no mass) and several people including non-religious friends have said it was one of the most beautiful ceremonies they had ever attended. Our Father was amazing and he liturgy was very sincere and personal and we were very careful to chose meaningful readings and music. All in all it was 45 minutes.

We are just having a ceremony which usually 45 min to a hour. It doesn't include the mass, so it is quick to the point. There will be only readings, some songs, lighting the candles, and vows. My ceremony starts at 5pm and should be done by 6pm. The cocktail hour starts at 7, but they allow guests to come in earlier so my guests can go straight to the cocktail hour afterwards while we take pictures.

I'm Catholic and my fiance is not. We are doing a ceremony without communion. It will only be about 30minute if that.

Hi,

i am sure, once you decided to go through the church or chapel religions ceremony - your guest will understand it. It will be helpful to provide each of them with a program and rice packages)))