Pre Cana

LaFemmeRousse

Brides who had/will have Catholic weddings, tell me about your experiences at pre cana, please.

FI and I are doing a day-long session this Saturday, and I'm not really looking forward to it.  He is Catholic, I am not, but we are having our wedding in a Catholic church, although we're not doing the full mass.  I know the basics and I majored in theology at a Catholic college, I'm more interested in hearing what you thought and felt about it when you went.  Was it useful?  Fun?  Informative?

New_to_PGH

We also did the one day session (in Lawrenceville, if that's the one you're headed to). It was long. And the seats are folding metal ones, so take a cushion if you can. The topics weren't too bad. For us, about half the day was a discussion on the evilness of birth control, the approved natural family planning method (oh, how I love to hear about cervical mucus on a Saturday morning!) , and other such very catholic topics.

There were also a few sessions about finances, communications, etc. Pretty basic stuff if you're an open couple. DH and I found it hard to believe that there might seriously be people getting married who haven't talked about that already (for example: joint or separate finances? Are you brining debt into the marriage? etc)

CLW102409

Ditto Jenn.  Thankfully it seemed to go by quickly with a lot of breaks.  The talk of natural child birth and bcp gave me a very uneasy feeling.  I have a very weak stomach when I hear people talk about giving birth.

KRMac

I agree with Jenn (we did the same program with Fr. Scott.)  I couldn't believe that they think you would not have previously discussed some of the stuff they covered, specifically with communication and finances.  I mean, it isn't like too many people get married after only knowing someone for 2 weeks or whatever!  Plus I was annoyed that only ONE of the women that spoke (with their husbands) had a job outside of the home.  

But, we did get more than we expected out of the class...we still talk about a few of the things we learned.  Make plans to do something fun afterwards!

skybluejen

We did a one day session at my old church in the North Hills. We were kind of dreading it, but it wasn't too bad. It was a 12 hour session, but only lasted about 9 hours including a one hour mass. We had an hour breakfast and an hour lunch as well.

We would have a group session (taught by 3 couples from the church), then we would break away from our fiances and write about our thoughts. So basically they would tell all the guys to go to one room and the gals to go to the other room and answer certain questions in a journal they gave us. Then we would meet back up with our fiance and compare what we had written. We were never required to talk about anything infront of the group, so that was nice. Like Jenn said, its all things that most couples should have already talked about if they are getting ready to get married! They were things like:

"What are your thoughts on Children?"

"How do you resolve conflicts?"

"What is your biggest fear in life?"

It was painless, and we met a lot of fun and nice couples.  They also didn't really talk about the birth control thing. They simply said there was a pamphlet in our packet about natural birth control (taking your temp, etc), said we should look at it and consider it, then they moved on to another topic.  DH was afraid we would be given a long speech on it, so I'm glad they skipped over it.  We got to keep our journals from the day, which I put away with all of our wedding stuff. I'm sure it will be funny to read our expectations of marriage and all of our other thoughts many years from now

kbielak17

We also did a one-day session and were not looking forward to it, but it wasn't too bad. It was a lot less about God and more about your relationship than I was expecting. Some of the activities were a little cheesy, but some made you think. Not necessarily about new topics, but maybe some things you haven't thought about or discussed in a while. Some, like others have mentioned, were very basic topics that you have already discussed, and it amazed us also that some couples hadn't talked about this stuff yet.

We took our class in Arizona in July...and the AC wasn't working too well so we got early dismissal.

LaFemmeRousse

Thanks ladies, I really appreciate your thoughts and insight!  Jenn, we live in Chicago, so we're doing it at a random church here, with approval from the priest who will be marrying us.  I guess I'm mostly concerned that they will end up talking about a bunch of ethical stuff that will make me want to argue with them   You all make it sound tolerable, though!

slm13

We did a weekend session out here in Jersey.  We were dreading it, but we really had a lot of fun!  Very rarely did they mention God or the Church.  Instead it was a lot of relationship stuff - not finances and babies, which were things that, after living together for 6 years, we'd already discussed.  It was things like what a marriage means to you and what you really wanted out of life, the nitty-gritty things that we often steer clear of.  Because we were away at a retreat center, there were no TVs or radios.  It actually was a nice weekend away from the stresses of life.  One cool thing was that you had to write a love poem to your FI.  Neither of us had ever written one to each other before, so it's a nice memento that I have saved for us. 

Also, we had a great time making fun of our roommates - a 19 and 20 year old couple.  The girl still lived at home.  She had been homeschooled and was super religious.  When she found out I lived with DH, she was aghast!  She didn't know that it was legal to live together.  DH found out that her FI was a big pot smoker and really didn't care about religion.  I would love to know how long that marriage will last.

Plus, the food was great and was all you can eat!

kwynn

Shannon, that is hilarious about the 19 and 20 year old. Love it!

We did one counseling session with the pastor that married us. He was super nice, but it was a one-on-one session and I just didn't get a lot out of it. I hate being put on the spot, really hate it.

LaFemmeRousse

OMG Shannon, so hilarious about your roommates!  Glad to hear that you enjoyed the weekend encounter, too.

Kwynn, we'll be doing some one on one stuff with my pastor (co-officiating at our wedding), and I'm interested to see how that compares.  I'm looking forward to it more, have to say