Pre- Cana question

windrilene

I know it varies across the country, but how long did your pre-cana take? I am in the process of trying to get my parish to work with me to get it done in as little time as possible, since my FI is currently deployed, coming home to NY in Oct, but not returning HOME to me in TX until around Christmas, or as late as Feb, and our wedding is scheduled for late May. I emailed the lady at the church today (we set the date when he was home on leave this past May) to make sure the push back will still work, since we just found out about it, and she is skeptical that it give us enough time, since they require NFP, sponsor couple AND engaged encounter retreat. We have been engaged for 2 years because of the Army, and I really don't want to have to push it back anymore! I'm going to call tomorrow to get more details, but just wanted to get some feedback. Sorry if this is long and ranting- I'm about at my wits end with the wedding and the Army!

ring_pop

Ours took 3 sessions of about 2.5 hours each with our sponsor couple. We didn't have to do Engaged Encounter or any other NFP classes. (I always thought that Engaged Encounter was the crash-course equivalent for people who wanted to get it over with in one weekend.)

ChiBride82

In Chicago they offer a one day session on Saturdays.  It is 9am to 4:30pm with a one hour lunch break.  They also offer discovery weekends and my parish have a 5 week session if we wanted to do it there.

lap256

NFP was the longest, since it spanned 3 months (so we had time to practice charting). Engaged encounter is only a weekend, and I can't imagine a sponsor couple would take much time. We did all of ours between nov - may, so I think that 8 months is plenty.

bel138

For most of our Pre-Cana, I was 7 hours away in WV and FI was 4 hours away in MD. And unfortunately in the Byzantine church, there is one retreat weekend for three or four states. Yeah. Also, we obviously weren't in the same city, so we couldn't even do it with another priest where we were living. So, last October we had our wedding retreat weekend. Since then, we have had about 6 meetings with our priest back home. Which is about an hour from the retreat. Overall, it has invovled 10 meetings with the priest and one retreat weekend over 16 months. I really hated being out of town and driving to all this stuff and having to schedule it around med school. It was terrible. I would forget the things we talked about at the last meeting.

Pirata13

The one I am doing, we go Friday night from 7pm-10pm, then Saturday 9am-3pm. They feed us on Saturday and provide beer on Friday! Woo-hoo! Ask your church if there are other options if they suggest a certain one. My priest gave us the info on the pre-cana with the diocese, which is a couple hours one night a week for 4 weeks. That was too sketchy for us because we are both in theatre and don't always know we'd be free for 4 weeks. My parents participate in running the one we are going to, I confirmed with my priest it was ok we go there and he said fine.  So ask, they may know of other parishes that do pre-cana more condusive to your schedule.

girllennon

We weren't required to do the NFP classes and did Pre-Cana in one marathon Saturday session.

marcikabarec

our pre-cana was 4 meetings at about an hour long each. We really didn't discuss much church-related stuff...our sponsor couple loved us so we just really chatted about life at each session, haha.

mam677

Our Pre-Cana was 4 sessions at 2.5 hours each.

windrilene

Thanks everyone! I heard back from the lady at my church and they might let us do just the NFP and the engaged encounter, and thankfully the diocese offers several that will work for our schedule, and most of her concerns seemed to be over liturgy classes to plan the actual ceremony, and again, those classes will work for us too. I was just sooo worried yesterday that something else was going to go wrong, and I'm glad it's working out again!

Sydney.O.Rutledge

Best of luck to you!  I have been in a similar situation and it is very frustrating sometimes.  God bless you.

Calypso1977

we had 3 one hour sessions plus the introductory session so 4 in total.  ours were all with the priest, no one else.