Reconsidering the church wedding *RANT*

Ultimately, we had a beautiful wedding ceremony that incorporated some of the Catholic traditions (with readings, declaration of consent, etc) but was performed by a pastor from a local non-denominational church that DH attended with his parents. It was the perfect ceremony for us.

And, as it turned out, the pastor that performed our ceremony was in my DH's youth group when they were in junior high and high school.

(I'm getting a lot of wear out of this hat today)

Are you going to wear a stripper uniform? Is your nephew going to drop trou while walking down the aisle? I didn't think so... the priest, if he has any common decency will proceed. Just don't go bonkers. Trust me, I've seen bonkers ~stares off into the distance~

If getting married in The Church is important to You (not mom, not FFIL) and your FH, I would have a conversation with the priest and air the grievances. Tell them you've been to a massive amount of Catholic Nuptial masses and you've always seen dad walk their daughter down the aisle, are Those churches incorrect? Tell them that you're concerned about their not getting their act together (but do that delicately, it sounds like they're very swamped right now, with four churches banded into one)

How that conversation goes will give you a really good indication of how things are going. Again, if the priest has an ounce of human decency it will go well... If not, you have an army of e-shoulders ready to help you.

~kissing the ground I walk on that our church has been relatively welcoming and accommodating in this process!~

Songbird- I agree, it's is crazy that things vary so much between one diocese and the next. I can definitely relate to a lot of the things you went through w/ Pre Cana. Thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like things turned out great in the end, and that's whats most important. Glad things turned out well for you!

Yeah ... some churches are very very strict, some are not. Unfortunately our priest is a bit strict on a few things. He's very "old school" if you will. Apparently he's quite notorious for it. My co-worker who got married in a catholic church had a more laid back priest and they were able to bend a rules a little bit but not too much since my co-worker is very "with the rules" kind of guy anyway. He told me that his priest had to ask permission from MY priest because apparently my priest is pretty high up in the heirarchy so I got a little worried.

He's a nice guy, just stern about his rules. I thought it was a normal rule to not get married "outside" of the church unless you have some REALLY REALLY REALLY good reason (which I don't even now what this could be). It sucked because if only I could have gotten married at my reception venue with a catholic priest, I would have been happier but church it is. It' s okay though. It's important to my family and to us since we have always wanted to get married in a church.

I just never thought there would be so many rules!

But still @Hailey, regardless of the "rules" of the church, they just sound very disorganized in general. They really need to get their act together considering a wedding is a "sacrament" of the church. You think they would treat it with more respect.

Hang in there! You will figure out what ultimately works best for you.

I will admit that I had some pretty emotional moments with the (ahem) stuff we went thru with our diocese. Then I realized I was trying to force a fit between what we really wanted and what the diocese required because, somewhere in there, "it was expected."

And then my dad reminded me that I come from a long line of rebellious Irish Catholic women.

Do what makes the best sense for you as a couple. Ultimately, that is what matters.