Online or 1 Day Pre-cana Class?

We did it in sessions and it was highly rewarding.

I do have to ask, if it's a sacrifice, why is he doing it? What makes you want to be married in the church?

I agree w/ Tina's question, what makes it such a huge sacrifice for him? I understand having different beliefs/wishes, but I'm just wondering if it's really something you should talk further about?

I've never heard of it being online, TBH. We had an initial meeting with our priest, we then did an engaged couples conference, which was one day for 5 hours, and then we had another meeting with a deacon where we took a test which was a series of multiple choice to gain some understanding of the level of agreement between FH and I on certain topics. We went over the answers later on, and then had one last meeting with the priest to finalize all the paperwork. It was all very easy and painless, and we actually enjoyed it.

I married a non-Catholic and we did a short series one-to-one with a priest. It was a lot like non-religious couples counseling, it wasn't very explicitly Catholic-y. That may have been our priest who understood DH was not Catholic, so perhaps you can find a priest who is willing to keep it a bit more general? The only explicitly Catholic parts were related to planning the ceremony, it certainly didn't feel like catechism school or anything. But of course that I'm sure varies from priest to priest and parish to parish.

I'm a cradle Catholic it means a lot to me. He was born Catholic but over the years became agnostic. Mostly because of the church and its unfortunate situations in the past.

Holy Family in Manayunk does one day (Saturday) pre cana. It's also reasonably priced (under $100). That's where we did ours.

That's great information thank you Sarah

Private User - You will still have to have all the other meetings though, the one day pre-cana is just a part of the overall marriage preparations. Just an FYI.

Here's a good resource: http://www.foryourmarriage.org/dating-engaged/getting-married-catholic/

You're welcome. Originally we signed up for every Wednesday night for a month for about $300 and a friend clued us in to Holy Family. So much better!

Angela- One day Pre Cana is perfect for my situation I'm well aware of the other meetings, but thank you.

No worries - I was just trying to help. Glad you've found something suitable

I've done online.... it goes by super fast. It's easy, you don't have to leave the house, you can do it in your jammies.... I preferred it. I didn't even know 1 day pre Cana existed. I knew there was a weekend pre Cana. Either way it seems like they'll have you fit a lot of quizzes and talking to another Catholic Church couple into one weekend. They told us pre Cana online would take 6 weeks. We finished it in a little less than 2.

I'm a non-Catholic marrying a Catholic and we did Pre-Cana. I really disliked it. I went to Catholic school growing up (grammar, hs, college) and was fine with the religion, but felt Pre-Cana actually turned me off. I was hoping it would help us address issues like kids/finances/etc. but the sessions we did were very generic and gave little information on practical stuff - it was mostly preachy religious stuff that we both already knew since we both went to Catholic school. I think we drew the short straw though with the priest we got (very judgmental and opinionated) and that we had to do 2 full day sessions instead of 1 because of the Church we chose. FH really disliked it too and considered not getting married in the Catholic Church because of it. It definitely did not help prep us for a marriage - felt like high school religion class.

If it's a sacrifice for your FH i say do it online. I found it to be a waste of time going in person - which is unfortunate bc I was looking forward to it.

Asleigh- wow that's great can I ask where you went? Was your church located in the arch diocese of philly?

I am a non-Catholic marrying a Catholic in the church. We did the 1 day Pre-Cana and I thought it was fine. I've actually enjoyed all the marriage prep because it has given me some insight to some things Catholics do differently. I think doing it in person vs. online made us take it a little more seriously.

Caroline, I'm the same. Non-Catholic marrying a Catholic in a church ceremony. I dreaded pre-cana but found that it wasn't preachy at all and that they really just promoted open communication between partners. I totally enjoyed it. They set up each topic nicely and then gave us all time to discuss the matters together as a couple. We did have to go to a short mass after but that was fine. Overall it was a long day but it was nice and we got to check it off our to-do list in just one Saturday.

Dang, this makes me so angry and annoyed. We totally got a bad deal. What @Sarah is talking about is totally what I was hoping for and expecting We just sat through long talks about the Sacraments and Jesus' suffering, etc. Not much practical information about communication or married life. We didn't have time set aside to discuss anything as a couple during the sessions either, which I would think would be a very important part of it.

Hopefully yours is a normal session and not like ours. I still say do it online if he is not into it.

I'm also marrying a non-Catholic. Re: the pre-Cana, you DO need permission from the priest, and honestly, you may not even have a choice.

We met with our priest to set a wedding date and give him our basic information. Then, we did the online FOCCUS assessments, followed with a second meeting to discuss our results. At that time, he scheduled us for our pre-Cana sessions with a sponsor couple. He does not allow couples to use the Engaged Encounter (weekend) or online classes. We were a bit put off and anxious, but it turns out, Jerry and Marty were the best thing that ever happened to our relationship! We got to talk through all sorts of issues (not problems, but issues), added a ton of tools to our communication toolkits (that sounds goofy, but it's true!), got great insight into a fantastic marriage (they're in their early 80s, not that anyone would know from looking at them, and they've been married nearly 60 years), and also get differing perspectives (man and woman who've seen it ALL). I think trying to rush it to make it as painless as possible (I get it--I had the same fear for my FH) would actually rob you of a very valuable opportunity.

Our priest preferred the one day in-person session. I am SO GLAD we did it. We really enjoyed the experience and getting to meet and mingle with other couples!

Might I suggest The Engaged Encounter. It was a 2 night trip, but there was little church involved. The structure was: a speaker talked for about a half hour, guys and ladies separated to answer some questions in journals for about a half hour, guys and ladies found a quiet place to read eachother their answers and talk. Repeat with a new topic. Topics were things like finances and family traditions. There was one topic on natural family planning. The nice thing was that you never had to talk to anyone, you only talked to your FH. That made DH much more comfortable since he wasn't a Catholic at the time.

We did a weekend pre-Cana retreat and it was amazing! We listened to a couple talk about a topic and then talked to each other about the topic. We also had a couple classes we had to take that were pretty good as well.