Pennsylvania-Pittsburgh

Sacred Heart Shadyside

Has anyone went through the pre-wedding classes for a wedding at (or even just gotten married at) Sacred Heart in Shadyside?  If so, do you know how strict the priest is about living together? My finacee has his heart set on getting  married there, but we live together and I am concerned that if we tell Fr. Grecco we he will not allow us to have the wedding there. 

I am sorry I am completely new to wedding planning and have NO IDEA what I am doing, so I might not even take the classes with the priest... All I know is my fiancee got a "firm talking to" about not going to church, so he wants to lie about about everything else. 

Re: Sacred Heart Shadyside

  • Father Grecco is very strict, not to mention intimidating I don't think he would approve of cohabitating at all. I am not telling you to lie but I hope his helps with your question.
  • long story short, yes Fr. Grecco is very strict. Your living together will not prevent you from being married in their church but expect another strict talking to.  we ultimately ended up choosing Heinz Chapel for our ceremony because we want my priest from home to marry us anyway.  But i initially checked with sacred heart because i live across the street and mainly attended mass there for the last 4 years.  my fiancee and i live together and when i told him that, he wasnt pleased, but when i outright asked if we could not be married there because of that he said, unfortunately we wouldnt do many weddings if we didnt marry couples who lived together.

    a few points--

    they only do a certain number of weddings for non parishoners, so if you are not members then you might have a hard time getting on their schedule anyway.

    if you want to get married in the catholic church, you have to do some kind of pre wedding class. there are multiple formats for this and if you go here: http://www.diopitt.org/office-adult-and-family-faith-formation/pre-marriage you can see what is required and what the options are for that. we did the full day class at St Josephs church in Coraopolis and i would recommend it.

    finally, this is just my opinion, but i would strongly advise against lying to any priest about living together, or any of the other questions they have to ask for the wedding paperwork. other than my experience with fr grecco, the priests i have interacted with since then have either avoided asking or have just accepted it. i felt like it might have been easier to lie about our addresses to avoid this issue but i was too afraid of it coming back to bite us in the end.

    good luck, i hope this is helpful!
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