Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions

catholic ceremony

Could anyone provide me with a "cheat sheet" of every reading, song, and how many people participate in things like lighting the candles? It will be much appreciated! I'm trying to figure out who will be doing what at the ceremony. Thank you in advance!!

Re: catholic ceremony

  • Jen4948Jen4948 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    Maybe someone on the Catholic Weddings board can help you with this?
  • itzMSitzMS member
    First Answer First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment

    You will need at most 3 readers (1st reading, 2nd reading, Intercessions). One person can do all three if you prefer.

    If you're talking about "candle lighting" in reference to the unity candle...ask your priest first. The unity candle is actually not a Catholic tradition and some priests/parishes prefer you don't do it.

    Your church should provide an organist/cantor as part of your fees. Ask your priest.

    The only "extra" person we had other than readers was a cross bearer.

  • @jen4948 I posted it there also. 

    @itzMS good to know. The church that I am using I am basically just "renting", nothing comes with it. I have to find and decide everything on my own. The priest that will marry us is at a different church and he doesn't do wedding very often. He is just a family friend. But I will ask to see if maybe there's any document he can give me from another priest. Thanks!
  • I'd definitely talk to your priest.  Catholicweddinghelp is a great online resource for this stuff.  I'm sure the Catholic Board will have good answers!

    If your psalm is not being sung, there's another reader opportunity.  But I'd probably just have whoever is reading the first or second reading do it.

    Dito everything else @itzMS said.

    And I just remembered, if you want more people to be involved, you can have 2-4 people present the gifts.

  • You didn't mention it, but if you need help picking out the readings, we received a book from our priest "Together for Life", it went over all the standard readings for the wedding sacrament.  You can always pick out your favorite, if you need.

    We also needed to provide our own cantor/organist.  It was not included in our fee to the church.  I would call and ask to speak with the wedding coordinator at the parish you are marrying in.  If they do not have one, ask for the music coordinator or ask for a list of approved musicians.  They are usually the parisoners of the parish.  Once we met with the music coordinator at our parish, she also played the organ for us, she provided us with a sheet of all the wedding musicians that the church uses most frequently.  This was how we ended up being able to contact the musician we loved the most from church.

    We used 3 readers and 2 gift barers total.  If you are not having a full mass, then there will be no gift barers.  Originally, the first priest who was to marry us said he would read the intercessions.  But once we met with the priest who ended up performing our ceremony, he said we needed a reader for the intercessions.  So this may depend on your priest.

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