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New and need to rant! (sorry in advance)

kiceykicey member
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in Chit Chat
Hi!  I apologize in advance for this rant.

This is my second marriage.  My fiance has never been married before.  A little bit of background, first.  We met in 9th grade.  My family moved out here (Utah) and we lived here for a year.  My fiance, J, and I met at school and started dating.  At the end of the school year, my family decided to move back to Minnesota.  We tried the long distance thing for a while, but in high school... it just didn't work.  J and I stayed friends though. 

I ended up marrying another man pretty much right after high school.  Big mistake, but I digress.  Anyway, we ended up getting a divorce, and I ended up moving back to Utah, as I have friends and family here.  J and I got back together.  He's been my best friend for 10 years, and it wasn't surprising to anyone that we got together. 

Skip forward almost three years, and here we are.  J and I have been engaged for about a year now.  Unfortunately, we've put all of our planning for the wedding off until recently.  A large part of this is financial issues.  Gotta love those!  We currently have our wedding planned for June 17th.  Unfortunately, everything is falling apart.  

I'm starting to wonder if the wedding is actually going to happen at this point.  I have my dress, and we have the tuxes and bridesmaid's dresses figured out.  We have the venue (a friend is letting us use her backyard).  That's about all we have.  We are on an extremely tight budget, and plan on doing almost everything ourselves.  My mom is making our wedding cake (which will probably turn out much more yummy than some of the horror stories I've heard...), we're going to do the food ourselves, etc.  

The problem is, we don't even have an officiant.  My fiance is Catholic.  I am not.  And on top of that, I've been married before, and even have a child from that previous marriage.  We've been trying to work with a Priest, but they keep putting us off, and now there's not enough time to get everything figured out before June.  We're talking about different options, but I'm getting to the point where all I want to do when thinking of the wedding is cry. 

I know that realistically, we shouldn't have set a date before we had an officiant.  My family is all coming from various places across the US, though, and we needed to set a date around when they could be here.

I don't even know what to do anymore.  There is so much more that just seems to be falling apart with the wedding, but this is already a little long, so maybe I'll make those into other posts later.  Any happy words, or advice is greatly appreciated.  I'm at my wits end!
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Re: New and need to rant! (sorry in advance)

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    andy71781andy71781 member
    Combo Breaker First Comment
    Poor girl - that sounds like it sucks.  I do think that there is a lot of "non-traditional" officiants out there that won't take that much time.  Take deep breaths and you'll be feeling better I promise.  What specifically do you need besides an officiant? 
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    katieanne85katieanne85
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    most priests will not perform weddings outside their church buildings, although performing a second marriage is often left to the preists or diocis personal discretion. Is your Fi set on a catholic wedding? you could have a friend ordained.
    the officiant is the big thing, you need to figure it out, without it your just having a party, but there are other options, are there a lot of catholic churches in your area? check a few.
    Check your local boards for suggestions.

    congradulations, I hope everything works out for you, it sounds like youve been thru a lot to get to this point. :)

    and you have wonderful grammar and punctuation. :)

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    lharri12lharri12 member
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    Sounds like you just need an officiant, right?  Everything else is extra.  I'm not Catholic, so I don't know the details of what you need to do to get married in the Catholic church.  How important is it to your FI to have a Catholic wedding?  You could find a different officiant (Catholic or non-Catholic).  You might even have time to have a friend or family member be ordained to perform the ceremony, but you would need to look into whether this is legal in your state (it is legal in most states).  Good luck, and give us more details!  We like to help!
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    KatyRoseMKatyRoseM member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    I am also from Utah, and there are many non traditional officiants, we are also looking to do that.  (He is catholic, I am Jewish).  I don't know if you are wanting a Catholic wedding or a Priest, but if not I could come up with some ideas if that would help.  Let me know.  

    Also welcome to the board, there are not many Utah girls on here and its nice to meet you.
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    kiceykicey member
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    Thanks for all the nice words everyone!  It just feels sometimes that this is all getting overwhelming.  We have the plans for everything, but nothing actually taken care of yet.  No idea what we're doing for food (so if anyone has any cheap but good ideas, let me know!)

    A lot of you are asking about the ceremony.  J wants a Catholic ceremony, but he has said that if it is possible to do something a little less traditional, and then have the marriage blessed by the church later, that is fine.  Katy, I would LOVE it if you had some ideas for me!

    I'm also trying to figure out some ways to get my son involved in everything a little more.  He's almost 4, and is SO excited for the wedding.  I just want to make it special for him too. :-)

    So much to do, so much I've put off, and so much that still needs to be done!
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    Blueyed228Blueyed228 member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited April 2010
    A catholic priest will not marry you unless you had an annulment.  You are still married in their eyes.

    You also cannot have a "Catholic ceremony" unless it is in a catholic church.  A catholic priest may attend your wedding, but thats about it.  The church will also not bless your marriage if you did not have your first marriage annulled.  The catholics are strict when it comes to that. 

    Your best bet would be to get a JOP.

    That being said, you can find a JOP easily and have a wonderful ceremony.  I would just not hold your breath for the priests to get back to you.
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    kiceykicey member
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    Yeah, I know about needing an annulment.  That's part of what we've been working toward.  
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    526SadieSadie526SadieSadie
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    Yeah, there's the annulment and you'd most likely need to convert.  The conversion process takes about a year and I've never heard of a priest performing a wedding in a church wherein one of the parties wasn't Catholic.  A JOP is your best bet at this point, or a judge. 
    You could keep searching for the right priest; a friend of mine was raised Jewish and Catholic and had a priest and a rabbi perform her wedding at a country club, but she had to scour around to find a priest open to it. (and I reiterate, she was raised in both religions so no conversion was necessary)
    If you call your local court house, you could ask for any of the judges' clerks, they'd be able to tell you who was available on your day.  My mom is a paralegal  and one of her former employers is now a judge and he's performing my wedding. He's a really nice guy and he performs weddings all the time, sometimes with five minutes notice!!  You'll find someone, but you have to buckle down and start looking asap.

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    psichickpsichick
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    it seems like your best bet at this point is to go ahead and have a JOP or other type of officiant do the wedding. then get your first marriage annulled and then do convalidation. 

    i'm not sure though if the church will recognize your marriage if you are not catholic. they are pretty strict on that one. it usually depends on the church itself. good luck!


    here's a link to some ministers in utah that might be able to help you for the day of ceremony:
    http://www.gatheringguide.com/event_dir/ut_utah/evl_wedding_officiants.html
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    Minimax052910Minimax052910 member
    First Comment

    You should consider a nontraditional officiant. My best friend got engaged last year in June to a man who was married before. He's not catholic and my best friend is. She knew that the annulment takes a while, so she had a year long engagement, to get annulment taken care of.

    She's getting married in July this year. She met with her priest soon after she got engaged and they started the annulment procedure. Fast forward few months, the priest finds out that the paperwork wouldn't be able to get through and the annulment wouldn't be approved in time for their wedding.

    I also want to point out that one of the PP mentioned that you're most likely required to conver. I want to mention that I haven't heard of this, coming from a big Catholic family who have married mulitple non-Catholics in Catholic churches. Maybe in her situation. My best friend's fiance is not converting to Catholism. They do not need to convert to be married to a Catholic person by a Catholic priest. My mother is Catholic, she married my dad in a Catholic church by a Catholic priest when he wasn't Catholic. 15 some years later my dad converted.

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    amwilli5amwilli5
    First Comment
    edited May 2010
    Best and fastest and yet typically cheapest bet is a justice of the peace.  They'll travel anywhere in town typically.  Most towns have a town office at least where I've lived and the person that is the town clerk is usually an officiant with the state.  We are actually having our town clerk marry us because we've gotten to know him pretty well over the years, he charges $50 and will do pretty much anything you ask.  He just can't bless the marriage the way a priest would, but you're still just as married.  It sounds like you just need a JOP and you're set, I'd do this and you can still keep your date set
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