Catholic ceremony with non traditional music and readings?

Caitlin192

Hi everyone, 

We have a meeting with our priest coming up and I'll ask him these questions then, but I wanted to see if anyone else has done this. 

A little background - my fiance and I have a daughter and are getting married in a Catholic church with a Catholic ceremony. The priest who is marrying us is a family friend of my fiancé's. He baptized our daughter and is very supportive of the marriage. So I suppose we're starting the ceremony off on a non traditional foot already. 

We didn't know if there were rules about music or readings. Here's what we'd like to do: 

Bridal Party Processional - What A Wonderful World (instrumental) 

Bride's Processional - Somewhere Over The Rainbow (instrumental)

Recessional - Ob La Di Ob La Da (Beatles version) 

Readings: 

A selection from Jane Eyre 

A selection from the Bible. 

Has anyone done this or is it really up to the church/priest? 

MobKaz

If you are having a traditional Catholic ceremony, with or without a nuptial mass, the music typically must be liturgically approved.  This website...............
http://catholicweddinghelp.com/
has an extensive list of music and readings.

Your parish should also have a music ministry that can assist you in selecting music as well as readings.

Some parishes will allow certain, limited secular music choices.  One that comes to mind is, "One Hand, One Heart" from the musical West Side Story. 

Often, the choice is not always at the discretion of the parish priest as much as it is the Archdiocese.  The church has some amazingly beautiful, and contemporary sounding musical selections.  The website noted above will have links for which you can listen to many of the selections.

Finally, the incredibly informed ladies on the Catholic Wedding Board (you can find them to the left under Cultural Wedding Boards) may be able to point you in the direction of other sites that may be of help to you.

Lisa50

The priest will let you know what is acceptable in his chuch.

Caitlin192

We aren't getting married at the priest's church. The priest is a very old family friend of my fiance's family and he baptized our daughter. His church is about an hour away. 

The ceremony is at our church, which is connected to the school my fiance went to for K-8. 

Caitlin192

Oh and this is the Jane Eyre reading we like. Very wedding appropriate. 

I have for the first time found what I can truly love – I have found you. You are my sympathy – my better self—my good angel—I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my center and spring of life, wraps my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. –

divinemsbee

Yeah, you'll need to talk to the priest and probably the priest who's the pastor of the church you're getting married at, especially if they're of different diocese. If you were getting married in that priest's church he might be a little more able to bend rules, maybe, but in another church you'll have to figure out what they want. I'm also getting married in the Church and I know that non of those songs or the non-religious reading would be allowed. At all. Talk with the music director at the church you're getting married in and he/she will be able to point you in some directions. If you're getting married with a Mass, if you're both Catholic, then you'll have to follow the liturgy form and you add the Rite of Marriage. If you're not doing the full Mass, you'll probably still follow Mass structure through the Liturgy of the Word, which means you'll need two readings from the Bible. 

MeagMcNamara

The parish I am a part of is locally known as the "Little Vatican" and is very strict on the music and readings.  A lot of the times when pressed by brides/grooms on wedding selection the priest will check with the bishop but it is always no. 

My aunt has been playing wedding for the last 40 years and she has so many brides that come to her upset about the music choice.  She has put some bible readings to music that have been allowed but 99.9% of the time it has to be hymns.  "Save it for the reception" is the normal byline if there is a song you really, really want.

Sucks but I made peace with it. :S