PRENUPTIAL WITNESS AFFIDAVIT

Jessica41381 · July 2013

I'm new to the Catholic Church as my fiancé is catholic and I am not. We are having a wedding in the church and I was wondering about the prenuptial witness affidavit. Is this just used to prove we are feee and able to get married because our witnesses signed it?

itzMS · July 2013

Jessica41381 said:

I'm new to the Catholic Church as my fiancé is catholic and I am not. We are having a wedding in the church and I was wondering about the prenuptial witness affidavit. Is this just used to prove we are feee and able to get married because our witnesses signed it?

DH & I each had to have 3 witnesses come in to interview with our Priest in order verify what we had stated was true.

It's pretty common.

chelseamb11 · July 2013

We each had to have one signed by a parent of ours. It literally just stated we were free to marry (no previous marriages, not related, etc).

lalaith50 · July 2013

wow, that's intense. We didnt have to to anything like that; we just signed it ourselves.

Jessica41381 · July 2013

We don't have to have anyone come in to sign it , they just have to have it signed and witnessed by a notary. I'm having my mom, and he is having one of his parents.

monkeysip · July 2013

Yeah we didn't have to have any prenuptial witnesses either. It's weird how much the process varies from parish to parish (or priest to priest)

professorscience · July 2013

MIL had to do one in the presence of a priest. My mom isn't Catholic and the priest closest to her was insanely hard to get ahold of (like, we'd call and say we were 5 minutes away, be told he was there, show up and be told he was gone), so they let her just call the office of the parish where we were married and complete the interview by phone, "So she wouldn't have a bad taste for Catholics," which I thought was sweet.

libby18bell · July 2013

Not sure if we should be worried or not, but we just had to take the Focus test in which we had to sign paperwork that we were free to marry and what not. We also had to do pre cana, which we found out later was very unconventional, but it worked great for us. We haven't gone over the focus test, but I'm guessing our priest isn't worried since he was more worried that we had good musiciansto handle the level of music we picked.

itzMS · July 2013

I think our priest wanted three witnesses each so we would have to have one person that wasn't a parent. Obviously, parents can be a bit biased... ;-)

I'm not sure if it was really necessary for them to come in...but he's a super social, yet oldschool priest. So I'm sure he just wanted visitors.

monkeysip · July 2013

@ libby

I wouldn't be worried. These things are at the discretion of the priest/parish. I mean, not even formal marriage prep or the Foccus is absolutely required.

We did the Foccus, signed paperwork saying we were free to marry, and had a few pre-marriage "talks" with our priest. That was it.

HisGirlFriday13 · July 2013

We just had to sign ours in the presence of our priest under oath. No witnesses necessary.

agapecarrie · July 2013

Part of the difference may be catholic vs non-catholic. Catholics keep records of marriages, so a baptismal certificate that doesn't have a marriage notated is proof of freedom to marry.

manjermj · July 2013

Our Priest had to interview each of us by ourselves and then each of our parents by themselves. Then we all signed and were good to go. We didn't know this had to be done until at the rehearsal (Our Priest was not fromthe church we were married in), so we just did it in 15 minutes before heading to the rehearsal dinner.

Calypso1977 · July 2013

Catholics keep records of marriages, so a baptismal certificate that doesn't have a marriage notated is proof of freedom to marry.

true, but a catholic could have a prior marriage that wasnt in the church thus never notated....i have a gut feeling there are alot who lie about prior marriages if they know they werent valid even tho it would be a relatively simple process to annul it.

itzMS · July 2013

agapecarrie said:

Part of the difference may be catholic vs non-catholic. Catholics keep records of marriages, so a baptismal certificate that doesn't have a marriage notated is proof of freedom to marry.

DH & I are both born and raised Catholics. Still had the required witness interviews to the max. Looks like every situation is different.

HisGirlFriday13 · July 2013

Calypso1977 said:

Catholics keep records of marriages, so a baptismal certificate that doesn't have a marriage notated is proof of freedom to marry.
true, but a catholic could have a prior marriage that wasnt in the church thus never notated....i have a gut feeling there are alot who lie about prior marriages if they know they werent valid even tho it would be a relatively simple process to annul it.

This is patently false. Annulments aren't necessarily easy, or simple processes, or quick. They can be, and often are, long and arduous, with the Church digging into very personal aspects of your private life.

agapecarrie · July 2013

HisGirlFriday13 said:

Calypso1977 said:

Catholics keep records of marriages, so a baptismal certificate that doesn't have a marriage notated is proof of freedom to marry.
true, but a catholic could have a prior marriage that wasnt in the church thus never notated....i have a gut feeling there are alot who lie about prior marriages if they know they werent valid even tho it would be a relatively simple process to annul it.

This is patently false. Annulments aren't necessarily easy, or simple processes, or quick. They can be, and often are, long and arduous, with the Church digging into very personal aspects of your private life.

Actually, Calypso is correct. In the particular circumstances she is talking about, there is no presumption of validity. Therefore, its a defect of form decree, which usually takes less than a month, involves simple baptism, marriage, and divorce records.

Jessica41381 · July 2013

We met with the priest again last night and just went over the last few things( marriage license,what readings we want, and the paper my fiancé had to sign agreeing to raise any children catholic.). Overall through the whole process it's been easy, we haven't been required to do a lot surprisingly . Just the engaged encounter weekend, the foccus, and the prenuptial affidavit. It's smooth sailing from here on out! I can't praise the priest enough about me not being catholic and not trying to convert me, or requiring anything from me.

Calypso1977 · July 2013

yes, i was referring to lack of form type annulments. the typical annulment process is very, very long and involved.

professorscience · July 2013

Jessica41381 said:

We met with the priest again last night and just went over the last few things( marriage license,what readings we want, and the paper my fiancé had to sign agreeing to raise any children catholic.). Overall through the whole process it's been easy, we haven't been required to do a lot surprisingly . Just the engaged encounter weekend, the foccus, and the prenuptial affidavit. It's smooth sailing from here on out! I can't praise the priest enough about me not being catholic and not trying to convert me, or requiring anything from me.

That sounds like pretty much all my H and I had to do. Glad it's going so smoothly!

Also, it's certainly not a requirement, but I'd strongly encourage you to check out RCIA at your parish. There's never any pressure to convert, but it would be a great learning experience for you since your kids are going to grow up in the church. My SIL took the class about 6 years into her marriage to BIL (who also took it, despite being raised Catholic, just to learn), and while she didn't convert, it gave her a really great foundation to support BIL in the faith formation of their kids.

Jessica41381 · July 2013

professorscience said:

Jessica41381 said:

We met with the priest again last night and just went over the last few things( marriage license,what readings we want, and the paper my fiancé had to sign agreeing to raise any children catholic.). Overall through the whole process it's been easy, we haven't been required to do a lot surprisingly . Just the engaged encounter weekend, the foccus, and the prenuptial affidavit. It's smooth sailing from here on out! I can't praise the priest enough about me not being catholic and not trying to convert me, or requiring anything from me.

That sounds like pretty much all my H and I had to do. Glad it's going so smoothly!

Also, it's certainly not a requirement, but I'd strongly encourage you to check out RCIA at your parish. There's never any pressure to convert, but it would be a great learning experience for you since your kids are going to grow up in the church. My SIL took the class about 6 years into her marriage to BIL (who also took it, despite being raised Catholic, just to learn), and while she didn't convert, it gave her a really great foundation to support BIL in the faith formation of their kids.

I have actually looked into it and classes begin in August right after our honeymoon! I'm going to email them this weekend!

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