Marriage Prep Classes

pittpoint1119

My fiance and I were talking about how we have to prepare to get married next summer in my church. I know their are different types of preparations that one can choose from, but which did you decide on and why? We are both very busy and involved in our jobs so that is why we need to try and plan ahead esp. since I won't see my fiance much this time next year since he is an accountant and works every weekend up until our wedding. When did you decide to take the course and how far out? Some suggest waiting to closer to our wedding, our priest said whenever we want we can.

bibliophile2010

What did your priest or the marriage coordinator at your parish say? Many have specific classes they suggest/require/encourage.

FWIW, we were required to do a relatively extensive marriage prep by our diocese. In addition to the FOCCUS and a meeting to review it, we had a day long "married life skills class" (pretty much what is covered at most marriage prep things: communication, finances, etc.), God' Plan for a Joy-Filled Marriage (based on the Christopher West program -- Theology of the Body stuff), which were both day-long classes. In addition, we were required to complete a full course of NFP (which I would recommend whether you are required to do it or not; we certainly would have).

Many ladies here have really enjoyed their Engaged Encounter weekends. So much depends on your priest/parish/diocese, it's hard to give a direct answer.

sbcbus

We were able to complete the Engaged Encounter for our marriage prep.  Even though we're getting married this month, we actually did the EE weekend last June.  We actually both commented recently that we're glad we did it so far in advance.  Even though it didn't bring up anything specific we hadn't talked about before, it was a great experience and helpful to focus on important issues well in advance of our marriage and before wedding planning seemed to take temporary priority!

professorscience

I would say the church is very flexible on this.  My husband had a job at the time of our engagement that took him out of state and out of country on several occasions, and he was often given limited notice of trips.  We scheduled our weekend last March, and he requested off.  Since we were married in November, it was about 8 months out.  We actually ran into a sorority sister of mine and her FI, who were 10 months away from their wedding.

Whatever marriage prep you choose, you want it to be at a time where you can put your other cares aside and just focus on what you learn and your relationship.  Good luck!

sbelle85

We were told that you have to do some form of it, but they can be somewhat flexible on aspects of it. My understanding is that the Engaged Encounter is required unless for some reason it's absolutely impossible for you to do it. They also offer "Day for the Engaged" which in some cases they will allow you to substitute for Engaged Encounter.

My fiance and I live in two different states. I work, so I can only travel to his state for marriage prep on weekends, and he's in his medical residency, so it's very hard for us to commit to both being off on particular weekends. He often doesn't know his schedule for the month until the week before, and asking for multiple weekends off to do marriage prep just isn't an option for him.

Because of our situation, we are excused from the couple-to-couple counseling that you are usually required to do (meeting with a married Catholic 'training' couple in their home over the course of 6-8 weeks). Our priest said that our FOCCUS test results were the most aligned with each other and the church that he'd ever seen, so a lot of the "problem areas" that are indicated for other couples in the test were not things that he felt we needed to spend extensive time discussing.

We are doing three or four sessions with our priest instead and then the full engaged encounter weekend (we would have preferred to do the day long workshop, but since our classes are not being taught by a married couple and we're only doing a few of them, our priest prefers us to do the whole weekend.)

I think the church will be pretty flexible with you up to a certain extent, but there are certain requirements that you have to meet regardless of your situation. In our case, all of the paperwork has to be turned in one month before the wedding, so we got started right away just to make sure we had it all taken care of and weren't scrambling to complete things at the last minute. Check with the church where you are marrying and ask them when they need to have all of the paperwork, baptismal certificates, etc. just to make sure that there are no surprises later and that you allow time for any mishaps (certificates getting lost in the mail, etc).

court115

We had to do a meeting with our priest, pre-cana classes and then a final meeting with our priest after we completed our classes.

We were given the opportunity to do our pre-cana three different ways: 4 Wednesdays a month for a 2 hours a meeting, 2 Sunday afternoons for 4 hours each meeting or the weekend Encounter. My FI is Methodist, not Catholic, so we decided against the Encounter weekend. We did the two Sunday afternoon sessions. I really liked it and found it very interesting.

As far as timing, we're getting married this May and did our first meeting last April, our pre-cana last month and our final meeting last week. There were people in our pre-cana classes who were getting married this month and some that weren't getting married until December so I think timing is really more about what you're comfortable with and what your church requires.