Those of you getting married in a church you don't attend

In the neighboring town. I emailed the reverends of them on Saturday. The one in the neighboring town looks like it has a reception space from the pictures, but I'm not sure about the one in our town. Anyway, the point of this thread was to ask how long it usually took you ladies to hear back from a church regarding a ceremony and reception when you aren't members of said church. I know they are busy on the weekends, especially Sundays, obviously, but I'm really anxious, because we can't do ANYTHING without a venue

We're getting married in a church that we don't attend and I was nervous asking the pastor about it but he said he understood our situation and that he would be happy to perform the ceremony and that we could rent the church no problem but this is Baptist church and we are both Baptist so there was very little hesitation on his part to welcome us in. We heard back in about a week. We even went to services there one Sunday so we could meet with the Pastor and tour the building afterwards.

Yeah, I'm just really nervous since neither of us are religious. We are more spiritual.

As we've gotten older we've become that way too but we both agree that marriages should not be performed by the same person who grants divorces (a judge/ JOP) and that marriage is a union created by God.... I'm sounding preachy and I'm sure you can see what I'm saying here. Just keep an open mind and if they want to give you pre-marital counseling as a condition take it, it's free counseling, it might help you understand their beliefs before the ceremony and it will give you the chance to talk with the reverend/ pastor about what kind of ceremony you're hoping for.

I am getting married in a church that I don't attend, but so far it has been super easy! I am religious, so this was hard for me because we wanted to get married in our church, but they would not marry us because we are living together. We are getting married in a Methodist church, so only thing I have run into was asking to not have a female minister. I am a little old fashioned!

You might want to also follow up with a phone call. Even if it's after hours just leave a message. Every church is different. Our church doesn't have a fulltime secretary so while I'm pretty sure she calls in to check the messages regularly, I also know she is a college professor and her schedule can be quite busy sometimes. I would say within a weeks time, you should have heard something back.

We're getting married in the Church I grew up in, but no longer attend... The pastor was understanding and the Church Family was honored I would want to get married there... I think it's fine to do so!

Churches usually have some sort of policy for non-members, so just find out what theirs is. Just be upfront with them about who you are/what you believe-dont beleieve.

I received a response to my email from the fr (I assume that means friar?) of the episcopalian church here in our town. He was very friendly and said that their only requirement was the we do pre-marital preparation with them to approve the officiation of the ceremony. When I told FH this, at first he was adamently against it. He had never heard of such a thing. When I told him it was very common and that it was he who suggested an episcopalian church, he calmed down. I think FH was worried that it would be some kind of conversion meeting, but when I assured him it would pretty much be so that they would know we were prepared for marriage and understand the commitment we are making, etc. I told him that they would ask us our beliefs, but that it wouldn't be a conversion or anything, so he calmed down lol. I guess we are used to everyone we know trying to convert us if we aren't religious that he freaked out at first. Hopefully, we can schedule our prep for December. I've asked the cont

Friar for any other information and let him know that we could have an initial meeting very soon to discuss the finer details. I asked him if the church had a sort of fellowship/group room we could use for the reception. Hopefully they do. Anyway, I'm excited so hopefully it will be nothing but good news from here on out.

We arn't getting married in a church that we belong to either. I have to admit it was the toughest thing so far for us to book. Neither one of us currently live in the town that we are getting married in, so we had to call around to find a church. Some places were very accepting, while others were not. There were a couple that were almost rude to me, telling me that they do not perform weddings for non members. Thankfully, we finally found one who does weddings all the time for non members and they were super nice. We also have to do some sort of pre counseling. I think most churches make you do that nowadays.

Let me just say that I think the pre-marital courses are GREAT. My husband was against them at the outset and I was kind of "meh" in that I didn't think they would be very helpful but in the end we were both really happy we did it.

Glad to hear the church got back to you so quickly. I know for Catholics you can only get married in the church if one of you is a Catholic, so it's cool that Episcopalians are so open minded :-)

We aren't getting married in a church that either of us belong to. It was really easy - he's a great guy & we've already had 3 of our premarital counseling sessions.

JLacy: "Fr" stands for "Father" in the Episcopal Church.

Episcopalians tend to be EXTREMELY laid back, so yeah, they're not going to proselytize. :-)

Ok. I'm used to "Brother" and "Preacher" that the only other names I know are "Priest" so I was slightly confused.