Picking a church?!?

We are getting married in a catholic church and it is not the easiest process but I think it is worth it.

We have to;

-go to a conference for the engaged

-go to a natural family planning course

-take a 180question 'couple inventory' test and review the answers with a married couple from the church

-meet with the priest doing the ceremony 3-4 more times

-give them a NEW baptism certificate (it will list all the sacraments you have had, including if you have been married before)

-We have to each have our parents do affidavits of the 'free status' of each of us

-and our priest hates unity candles cause they are not part of the traditional catholic wedding ritual so we can't have one.

I am not sure if by previous marriage you are referring to divorce of widowed but the catholic church does not believe in divorce so I don't know if they will recognize you as being single and able to marry again. Good luck, and just make sure you are totally up front and honest with the priest.

Oh goodness! I didn't know it was so much, but it means alot to my FH to be married in a catholic church so I will do what it takes! My prev marriage was a divorce so I hope that doesn't stop the priest from marrying us. Thanks a bunch for the info!

I was previously married and divorced and in order to get married in my FH's Catholic Church I had to go through the process of getting an annulment. Depending on the circumstances this could take one month to more than a year in some areas. With plans to marry in September you should get busy with that now. The annulment has to happen even though you are not Catholic. The priest generally won't start anything else until the annulment is finalized. Otherwise everything Amanda said is the same experience I had except the priest went over the inventory with us instead of another couple (which sounds much more valuable). We are going on our engagement conference this weekend. If your FH thinks that your marriage won't be recognized without it being in a Catholic Church, that generally is not true. Since you are not Catholic permission (meaning more paperwork) to be married in your church is fairly easy to get (depending on the diocese). You still have to get the annulment though...

I am not catholic but my FH, father and best friends husband were all raised catholic. I have found that some catholic churches are more strict then others, just call around and see what each one requires and be prepaired for some pressure to convert from some and very little requirements from others. I know with my parents, if they had been married in my dads church, my mother would of had to convert and if she didnt they had to do a buch of classes and they had to sign a paper stating that their children would be raised catholic and my mom had to show a baptism cert from any church or they would HAVE to do it, but in order to do it she would again...have to convert. Just hunt around.

Also! FH is not catholic but the only extra we had to do was him and the priest talked for awhile about differing views of their religions and why Catholics believe certain things. The priest also encouraged/warned both of us not to try to convert the other because it would be unfair, disrespectful and cause problems. We just had to say we will raise our children Catholic which FH is fine with. He has actually been considering converting on his own but it takes alot of work and more classes and being in law school he really doesn't have the time now. Oh, I don't know how this would have effected things but we were living together when we met with the priest about marriage but since we said FH was moving out to go away to law school he said "well that solves that issue." So I don't know if he would have not married us or what if we were living together. Our priest is VERY conservative though and we are not getting married at the church I'm a member of. I have pics posted of the church.

I'm getting super nervous about this now. Thanks for all the info ladies!

Like Amanda said that her priest is very conservative some aren't OR you just have to confess that you have sinned, because my FH and I live together and everytime I go to confession I have to confess it. The living together should really not be a problem. The Vatican along with the new Pope has changed a lot of things because of modern day world, some things are just idk old school if thats the phrase I should use and they recognize that. As far as the Pre-cana which is the meeting with the priest before hand not every church is the same. The divorce thing may be a problem but it also may not be being that you are a different religion so you might slip by on that. The best thing to do to make your experience faster and smoother is just to offer a very big donation to the church!

If you were married legally but not through the church you should check with your selected church. Each have a different requirement in this matter. You need to have both Baptism certificates for your churchs, take the Premarial Classes, there they'll probably request from you to promise to raise your kids in the Catholic doctrine. Depending on how strict they are, they might need additional things. You can search on the internet on traditional catholic wedding ceremonies.

Good luck!