Any Catholic Disbrides?

[EllaDisney]

I'm getting married in November and my mom is just now expressing how she wishes I was having a Catholic ceremony. My fiance' is Non-denominational. This is his second marriage and my first. We're still going through with the DFTW, but I was wondering if anyone had a situation similar to this. Did you get re-married in the church or did you have a small ceremony or what? I know it's different with every priest, I was just wondering.
Thanks

Bianca

 

[Chantelle]

My fiance and I are both catholics. We thought it might upset his strongly catholic parents that we were getting married in Disney, but they were great about the whole thing, even planning a big road trip to meet us in Florida. My mom (also catholic) seemed okay with the whole thing until her jerk of a new husband came into the picture and told us our marriage is going to be illegitimate since it wasn't in the church. He is a very strong catholic, which is fine, but my wedding was in the works before he came into the picture and he had no right to say anything about it. And the sad part is my mom just goes along with anything he says and is no longer even attending either of our wedding cermonies.

Anyway...back to your question. We explained to both my mom and Curtis' parents that the Catholic church does allow your marriage to be blessed afterwards and his mom seemed very happy about this. So we are going ahead with our Disney wedding and then will have our marriage blessed in the catholic church a couple weeks later.

This has worked well for us because we will have another ceremony for family and friends that can't make it to Florida to attend. We didn't realize the blessing would actually be another whole wedding, but it should be fine because we will already be married and there is no pressure. We have to go through the whole vows, ring exchange and full on mass for the blessing. It is almost more work then the disney wedding!

Curtis' mom has planned almost the entire thing for us, other then we had to go through the marriage prep course and get the paperwork together with our preist. The catholic ceremony doesn't mean that much to us, but I know it will make his parents happy and gives me a chance to wear my dress again so it should be good! We are also having a barbeque and dance afterwards with family and friends to celebrate.

 

[Janell]

DF is catholic and I am not, so our plan is to get married at WDW and then have our marraged blessed afterwards. I don't have all the details yet, but so far I know we are going to go to the marrage classes(not sure if thats what they are called) and then after that the marrage gets blessed.

 

[Chantelle]

I was a little apprehensive to do the marriage prep classes, but it actually turned out being very good. We were both afraid it would be very preachy, but it was mostly talking about dealing with normal marriage issues with a little bit of religion thrown in. It was good because it was led by actual married couples who shared their experiences with us.

We really found it brought us closer together and got us actually thinking about what the marriage means. We were so wrapped up in planning the wedding, that it was good to actually realize "hey, this guy's going to be my husband and be with me for the rest of my life".

 

[Janell]

I was a little apprehensive to do the marriage prep classes, but it actually turned out being very good. We were both afraid it would be very preachy, but it was mostly talking about dealing with normal marriage issues with a little bit of religion thrown in. It was good because it was led by actual married couples who shared their experiences with us.

We really found it brought us closer together and got us actually thinking about what the marriage means. We were so wrapped up in planning the wedding, that it was good to actually realize "hey, this guy's going to be my husband and be with me for the rest of my life".

Thanks for sharing about the prep classes. I was wondering what happens in these classes. Its nice to know it helps and was a good thing. And your right you can get wraped up in the wedding stuff and forget this is the person you will be with for the rest of your life. I try to remind myself to step out of wedding mode.

 

[Tabetha]

I'm marrying a Catholic too, and I was raised very anti-Catholic. (not sure what that's about, but there you go...) I'm trying to learn more about Catholocism - I don't want to convert, but I want to respect what DFi's family believes (his parents both work in the Catholic School system, so it's a big part of their lives).

Our plan was to either bring a priest with us to Disney (if it's allowed) to perform the wedding, or to go non-denominational at Disney and do the blessing thing when we get home. We have a priest in mind, and hope he'll do the honours. When I met him he was volunteering in the box office at our local comedy theatre (he does improv, too!), wore jeans, converse sneakers and a Beatles T-shirt. Mix in the shaved head, and that's a priest I can get behind!

 

[dopeynme]

Hi, Everyone! Just one concern....Ella, you mentioned that this is DF's second marriage. Is he divorced? I learned a bit about this, since my DF is Catholic, also. I am divorced and we were told that I would need to have my first marriage annulled by the catholic church (it was a Lutheran wedding!) in order for the church to bless our new marriage. Also, DF would not be allowed to take communion again ever if he married me without the annulment. (So now I am applying for an annullment....I love the man and it is important to him).

The good news is that the info I received from the Catholic church states that they DO recognize marriage between 2 christians, regardless of where they are married. So if 2 christians are married in city hall (or WDW!), the catholic church DOES recognize the marriage (as long as one of them isn't divorced without an annulment...)

 

[EllaDisney]

Yes he is divorced and is ready to start the annulment process.

 

[tink774]

My DBF and I have decided to either have a very small private ceremony first with just our parents and siblings, or wait until after and have our marriage blessed. We were both raised Catholics, but this is more important to me than it is to him. His mother isn't crazy about the fact that I don't want a full-out Catholic mass wedding because she adores them. But I figure that this arrangement will suit everyone.

DBF cringes every time he hears about the marriage preparation we will have to go through . He'll survive, though!

 

[Boo0105]

My husband & I are both Catholics. Our priest (who is very strict) said we had to marry in the church and that he did not bless marriages. We were married in the church on Aug 26 and then got married in Disney on Aug 28. At our Catholic Ceremony we invited close family and friends, and let them know we were only having the ceremony and nothing else. Our friends and family took pictures and video.

 

[Chantelle]

I guess I am just struggling with the whole Catholic thing since the church had no problems marrying my mom to a man she knew less then a year, and who has been through a divorce and has 4 kids who want nothing to do with him. I spoke to the preist about me and my siblings being uncomfortable with the whole thing and he told me was nothing that could be done if my mom wanted to marry him. I guess I was wrong in thinking the church would want to do what is in the best interest of the entire family, especially since I still have a 15 year old brother involved this is directly affecting. I guess since my mom's husband attends church regularly that makes him a better person in their books, despite the fact that he proven to be abusive and manipulative and no one else wants anything to do with the man.

I also have issues with the whole annulment thing because I know his children testified against him in the annulment hearings and it was noted in church records, but they went ahead and married him to my mom knowing this. The whole concept of annulment seems to be to pretend like the marriage never happened which I think is completely ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with divorce because sometimes things just don't work out but the catholic church just makes it feel so wrong and dirty. Then to try and say the marriage was a mistake and pretend like it never happened through annulment, even though you produced kids out of it, seems completely absurd. But thats just my opinion.