Long distance, Roman Catholic Wedding

RainHerself

FI is in Korea for a year while I plan our Pennsylvania wedding from Austin, TX. *phew* And one of my biggest concerns is our need for a catholic wedding.

Has anyone else been able to pull this off? There are a lot of requirements (pre cana) to make this happen and I don't know how they make it possible for a military man overseas to attend Pre Cana with his BTB being in the states. Do things get waived or is it just going to be a mess of late night conference calls? Maybe I can contact a local catholic priest who can aide me in my own Pre Cana while he sees his on base priest  to do his and then converge at the last moment?

I am thinking maybe a JOP wedding may be more appropriate at first and then obtaining the scarament while we are together in Japan. Will the catholic church allow such a thing?

This is all very confusing!

Any words of advice?

eskamo

This might be a question for the Catholic Wedding board, I'm sure those girls would know the answer. That board is under Cultural Weddings.

meltoine

You're in the same situation FI and I are. Here's what we did:

We did Pre-Cana online. You'll have to see if this is accepted in your diocese, but basically, every week they send you some reading and some questions, you answer them together (we read the stuff on our own, then wrote our answers together over the phone) and send them in, they comment on your answers and send them back. 

Also, we JOP'd this past November. I was really against it, but after discussing it with my priest (who basically told me that I was being silly and difficult for not wanting to do it) we did it. Now, keep in mind that we are not living or sleeping together until we have our sacramental marriage. We only JOP'd because otherwise I wouldn't be able to go with him to Cairo, and we'd be apart for another 2 years. My priest basically said "the first few years of marriage are the hardest - why voluntarily make them harder than they need to be?"

You can't really do Pre-Cana separately. It's all about inventorying your relationship and how you interact with one another. Talk to your priest and see what he recommends. If you're interested, I can send you the info for the online Pre-Cana. 

pie508

We're JOPing this Friday then having the Catholic wedding in a year. We did our pre-cana through a program called Engaged Encounter. It's widely accepted throughout most diocese (or so I'm told) and its all done in a weekend. Its pretty intense with just thinking about everything that you want and how you're going to deal with things. You listen to other couples talk about their experiences and then you separate and write about it for a bit, then get together and read what each other wrote and talk about it. And our priest said the JOP thing is more just legal but the church doesn't see us as married so we shouldn't live together or sleep together until the Catholic wedding. I also heard that all priests on the bases are in the same diocese. I don't know what that does or helps for your situation but I thought it was interesting.

RainHerself

Thanks ya'll for the advice, I think JOPing now and going for the religious ceremony later is really the best idea.

i had no idea that pre cana could be offered online or that all the military priests were under the same diocese.

This information helps SO much, so useful! Thanks again!

meltoine

The military is, in fact, it's very own diocese. The dioceses of the military and Washington make up the Archdiocese of Washington. JPII wanted to make Washington, DC an archdiocese since it's the capital of the country, but in order to be an archdiocese you have to have more than one sub-diocese, so he made the military into it's own diocese and made DC an archdiocese. 

JMU_Bride09

Definitely talk to the priest who will be performing the wedding.  He can help you figure it out

Kathleen Rachel C

Like others said, check with the priest.  We were in a similar situation when he was deployed to Haiti last minute.  Since we have a chaplain officiating our wedding, they were willing to work with us to come up with a solution to satisfy the pre cana requirements.  For example, ours requires a 6 week online course and 3 in-person meetings.  Military diocese is more likely to be flexible in your situation than a state diocese.  Good luck!

AriaGoose

Yup, similiar to many of the ladies posting, we are doing our pre-cana with our military chaplain and then marrying back home with my church.  Most military chaplains are very good about helping you plan around your military commitments and still get the good benefits from the pre-cana.

mandapandaxox3

My fiance and I don't live long distance but we are both in the health care field and have crazy schedules. I just started a new job and I can't take off for 6 months, and my fiance had to use his personal time for when his father was ill and the rest of his vacation time for the wedding and honeymoon. We have been unable to make the scheduled pre cana dates because of it. Pre cana online sounds like a great idea for us! if anyone has any info please send it to me!