Catholic Weddings

[VonBaroketch]

After listening to this week's podcasts (so nice to hear your voices again!), I have a couple of ideas for Catholics who would like to celebrate their weddings while at Disney. I am a native Central Floridian, just 40 miles southwest of the tourist corridor, and I was actually studying to be a priest for a couple of years and know Bishop Wenski of Orlando.

The Catholic Church asks under normal circumstances that couples preparing for marriage meet with a priest for counseling and spiritual direction up to a year before the wedding. This is the case in Orlando, and this is why most priests (those faithful to their bishop!) would be reluctant to just marry a couple who came down to celebrate at Disney.

My suggestion is that a couple who would want to get married at a church in the Orlando area and then celebrate with a ceremony at Disney, go through the marriage counseling with your priest and also locate a priest in the Orlando area. Then, have the two priests contact each other to discuss your preparation. This will set an Orlando priest at ease, and it will also help you get to know the priest who will be presiding at your wedding and what special arrangements the Orlando church offers.

Hopefully, the new parish in Celebration (Corpus Christi Catholic Church: www.celebrationcatholic.org) will be able to work things out with Disney to provide a more seamless experience. My guess is that the priest at Celebration will ask to work out the marriage preparations with the home priest of the couple.