I'm Catholic, he's Presbyterian

ginny814

Hey all!  So my fiance and I just got engaged about 2 weeks ago and we are so excited to start planning!  However, there is one little tidbit that I'm concerned with, and that is how to deal with the whole religion issue.  I'm Catholic and my fiance is Presbyterian.  Neither of us are very strict in our religions, and we acknowledge the fact that we may have been raised a little differently growing up.  We appreciate eachother's practices, and have actually have taken turns going to each other's churches for holiday masses, etc...  and we have agreed that we would like to get married in a church. 

My question is mainly on my part:  since I'm Catholic, do I need to go through some process to get this "OK'ed" or just go for it?  Although I'm not a strict Catholic, I have a guilty conscious and would feel bad not going through the necessary steps (if there are any) haha.  We plan on marrying in Heinz Chapel (non-denominational), or maybe some other non-denominational church.  My fiance's sister recently married a Catholic, and they married in her Presbyterian church, and it was a beautiful ceremony... so we could consider that, too.

Any advice concerning this matter is greatly appreciated.

-Ang

anne513

-If you want to incorporate both denominations a non denominational church would be best (some Catholic priests and parishes will allow it though). If you want to get married in a Catholic cathedral with a mass you can, you just can't have the full Catholic mass b/c FI isn't Catholic. I would talk to your priest and get his advice. 

Will your priest be performing the service or will your FI's minister?  

jrsygrl10

DH is catholic, i am not. we got married at the venue with a non denom officiant. he didnt need to obtain any sort of permission from the catholic church. it all worked out just fine

duqcheer04

Hello and Welcome!

If you choose to get married in a Catholic church, it is my understanding that you would both need to complete pre-cana classes (pre-marriage classes). If you don't marry in a Catholic Church, technically, your marriage is not "valid" in the eyes of the church. 

To some people that is a big deal, to others it is not. 

GL! At the end of the day, you will be married! Don't stress about it too much!

KRMac

Hi!  Congrats and welcome to the board. 

I think you need to weigh how important it is to you to have a Catholic ceremony.  Will it bother you if your marriage is not recognized in the church?  Do you want to have children and raise them as Catholics - baptize them, etc?  I would discuss it with the priest that you plan on asking to marry you ASAP.  (You need to bring your own if you wedding is at HC!)

You can have just a Catholic ceremony without your DH being Catholic or you can have a Presby minister (?) officiate along with the priest..as long as that is okay with your Catholic church/priest.  You would need to take Pre-Cana with your FI.  

Jen (LeFemme) went through this recently, so I'm sure she can offer more practical advice!    GL!

LaFemmeRousse

Hi!  We are in the opposite situation- I am Presbyterian and my DH is Catholic.  We just got married in July and researched this at length before making any decisions.

So my DH is pretty religious and it was very important to him to get married in the Catholic church, and not just have it be recognized, but literally be IN the church doing it.  There is a little bit of misinformation here- it actually is possible to be married in a different, non-Catholic church and have it be recognized by the Catholic church, it just takes a little bit of work on your part.  This is fairly common in situations where the bride is of another (Christian) religion.  So if you did have a religious ceremony elsewhere that incorporated Catholic traditions, it is possible to have that recognized by the church, but I'm not sure if a non-denominational ceremony follows the same rules.

Also, I want to correct the statement that you couldn't have a full mass if you did decide to get married in the Catholic church.  It IS possible to do this even if your FI is not Catholic, it's just something that most people choose not to do and it's not usually recommended for this reason.  But it is possible.

To have your marriage recognized by the church, you two would have to go with pre-cana classes and your FI has to have been baptized in some Christian denomination.  If he's not baptized, he can get that done anytime this year beforehand.  You may also have to meet with a priest individually, though this varies. We skyped with ours!

My best advice here is to be very honest and open in your communication about this matter and tell each other exactly what you want out of the ceremony right away so there are no surprises later on.  This was something we discussed at length- I am not Cathlic for some very specific reasons, and it was important to me that although we married in the Catholic church, the ceremony still felt like "me" and that nothing was going to happen during the ceremony that would piss me off unduly  

Ultimately, we were married at St. Boniface in a ceremony that was just the wedding rites, no full mass.  A family friend of DH's was the priest who officiated, and the pastor of the church where I grew up co-officiated.  We also talked very specifically about the readings/ structure of the ceremony and I was explicit about stuff I didn't want brought up, and the priest was happy to comply with this (stuff like preaching about gay marriage, promising my future children over to the Catholic church, bringing up the wedding night 25 times in the ceremony.... oh yes, I've seen it all at friends' weddings.).  The resulting ceremony was beautiful and personalized and we were both very happy in the end.

Sorry I wrote a novel, but this was something that took up a lot of time in our planning process!  Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have

KRMac

Thanks, Jen for correcting me, above.  I knew you would have the answers!  

anne513

Yes, Thanks Jen for also correcting me! 

slm13

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_pennsylvania-pittsburgh_im-catholic-hes-presbyterian?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:116Discussion:906a7fcf-7449-4cd4-abd6-cd353ff668f6Post:a1ebbe25-e2db-4f1b-8724-3bf8f92f8b02">Re: I'm Catholic, he's Presbyterian</a>:
[QUOTE]   So if you did have a religious ceremony elsewhere that incorporated Catholic traditions, it is possible to have that recognized by the church, but I'm not sure if a non-denominational ceremony follows the same rules. [/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>Just to follow up with this, if you choose to get married in a different Christian church, not all dioceses will recognize this as a valid marriage.  We just recently ran into this problem.  Because my cousin (who is Catholic) was married in a Methodist church to his wife, the diocese my DH and I belong to will not allow us to have him as Godfather to our LO.   They don't see his marriage as valid.  We never would have even imagined this being a problem until it came up.  I think our diocese (Camden, NJ), is a little on the stricter side though.</div><div>
</div><div>Just something to think about for circumstances they may come up down the road.
</div>

Pirata13

I agree with PPs, if you at some point want to have children and raise them Catholic, you will need to make your marriage "valid" in the Catholic Church. Talk to your priest if this is the case. But if you & Fi feel you will stay with a non-denominational church, then just go ahead with your plan to have the non-denominational ceremony at Heinz Chapel.  You and FI have to decide what kind of religious/spiritual life you want to have, and if non-denominational is it, then have the ceremony YOU want.

If you did decide to get married in the Catholic Church, you will have to do the pre-Cana program, but we did it at my parents' church where they do theirs a Friday night-Saturday afternoon.  They fed us, plenty of beverages etc. And H being non-Catholic didn't think it was bad at all.

You can opt for the full mass or without Communion. We did the full mass, and it was beautiful. I also am lucky enough to have a priest who keeps things short and to the point (i.e. not long-winded) so our full weding mass was only 40 minutes long.

I understand the whole Catholic guilt thing, but if you're not really practicing and don't plan to raise your kids Catholic, then I would enjoy your non-denominational ceremony and incorporate what you like about both faiths into your ceremony.