officiant solution=scheduling problem (long post-sorry!)

robertandmegangriffin

Hey Ladies

Everyone here has such good suggestions/advice/ideas, that I thought I would run this one by ya:

FH is Catholic, I'm not (raised Southern Baptist, believe in God, don't care what it's called) and I'm even interested in converting to Catholicism...later, for future kids' sake and all....so for that reason, who marries us and where is kinda important!

I had been having trouble finding an officiant because Catholic Priests typically won't perform a ceremony outside of the church, and while my Grandfather is a Baptist Preacher, I don't want him to perform our ceremony (he preached....about fornication, etc....at my cousin's wedding-it's all anyone remembers about her entire wedding!)  so I called FH's priest today and got some information. BTW-we already have our venue booked-The Lodge at Bridle Creek, and it's booked for a Sunday evening-we get the keys to the venue at like 3pm and have it til midnight. So after talking with the Priest, we've decided to try and figure out how to do the ceremony in the church and then have the reception and possibly a "public" ceremony at our venue.

His family is flying out from Boston, mine lives between here and Texas (Dallas area). Most of the close family will be here a full week ahead of time.

My question is: how are we going to SCHEDULE this? FH was saying we should have the ceremony in the church at like noon that sunday, then go set up the reception and all and have everyone come that night at 6 or 7 for the party. I think that's not going to work too well. A friend suggested we do the church ceremony a day or two before, and I think that would probably work best, but would we wear the dress and tux and all? Or just wear whatever and wait to really dress up and do everything on the day we had planned? Another suggestion was to do the ceremony at 2 or 3 pm, then have our guests drive from the church to the reception (26 minute drive) but my problem there, is who is going to set up the reception? We dont have access to the venue until 3pm as there is another wedding that morning.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks ya'll!!

saundramichelle

Okay, I'm sort of in the same boat.  Sort of.  FI and I are both Catholic, and absolutely want our marriage to be recognized by the church for future kids and whatnot.  However, for various reasons, it was important to us to have an outdoor, destination wedding.  We will be getting married in Mexico.  Obviously, our priest won't do that for many reasons.  We went ahead and did the pre-Cana class, and have talked to our priest about it.  Instead of trying to do it before hand, we are going to have what our priest refers to as a "validation" when we return.  (It has a fancier name, but I can't remember it, and I figured that if "validation" is good enough for the priest, it's good enough for me!)  Basically, we will go, get married, etc., and when we get home, we will have our marriage blessed by the Catholic church.  This is something FI's priest should know about.  If that will make it easier for you and FI, I would check with him about that.
Hope that helps...let me know if you have any questions!

robertandmegangriffin

That is an AWESOME idea, and I think our Father mentioned it when I talked to him, or something along those lines. Thank you so much I wasn't even considering doing it AFTER-that makes it seem much less stressful! Thank you! Will have to discuss this with the groom-to-be