When/How to do marriage prep

Chloeagh · October 2012

FI and I have picked a date and location that we really like and are 95% sure will work out. The location is FI's grandparent's farm about 6 hours away from where we live. These grandparents are Lutheran, so we won't have any connections to the Catholic church in town, but we are sure we can work it out.

The problem is with doing our marriage prep. We can't do it at the church we want to get married at. We live 45 minutes apart, so we each have our own Catholic church, but for various reasons we are both more involved with the local Lutheran churches. We don't know the priests at the Catholic churches and have no preference as to which we do our prep at. We have two options: do our marriage prep a year before the wedding at his church, which is less than a mile away from where I will be staying at that time, or do it closer to the wedding at my church, but we have to line up our schedules and FI would have to drive 45 minutes.

Is there a benefit to doing it closer to the wedding, or would it be okay to do it a year early? There are many reasons why it would be easier to do it at his church, but would it be difficult to do marriage prep at a different church from where we are getting married so early? Also, how should we go about getting the marriage prep started?

professorscience · October 2012

I think it depends on what all your parish requires.

We were basically given a list of the dates for Engaged Encounter (which was actually done through the diocese, so people who traveled from out of town had the option to stay on site, which you might consider if it's available and would help?), and chose March, which was 8 months out. I don't think that it would have been any different if we'd waited until closer (and a friend of mine who was 10 months out was at the same weekend), but it was kind of a relief to have it done.

The more I think about it, the more I think it might be better to go ahead and do it. Marriage preparation is supposed to give you a lot to think about as you prepare to take on this vocation, so I think it makes sense that you would give yourself a lot of time to reflect.

Chloeagh · October 2012

Thanks. That's what I was thinking. The church we are hoping to get married at only requires 4 months notice, but we plan on contacting them much earlier. Am I right in thinking that if we have already completed marriage prep, the process of getting married in a church we aren't members of will go more smoothly?

We were originally going to get married in a church we had both been attending for 9 months, but then we after making our current plan, we were both like, "Wait. What do we do for marriage prep now?"

Chloeagh · October 2012

Just looked it up and FI's parish asks that we contact the priest 8-12 months before the wedding. Since we would just be doing marriage prep, how early do you think we should contact them before we want to start to set it up?

bibliophile2010 · October 2012

I would just contact everyone asap and get the scoop. They are in the best position to give you good info. The worst they can say is call us back later! Plus, they can tell you what is required for marriage prep since it differs so wildly between parishes and (especially) dioceses.

professorscience · October 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_catholic-weddings_whenhow-to-do-marriage-prep?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:615Discussion:8ce80faa-3c68-4f63-b688-a38e3e2694b8Post:4b59b24b-07d8-4aec-9591-3b890842e0c7">Re: When/How to do marriage prep</a>:
[QUOTE]I would just contact everyone asap and get the scoop. They are in the best position to give you good info. The worst they can say is call us back later! Plus, they can tell you what is required for marriage prep since it differs so wildly between parishes and (especially) dioceses.
Posted by bibliophile2010[/QUOTE]

<div>This. I would start by contacting the parish where you want to be married so that if there's any problem with you not being members you can work that out. Plus, while churches have different requirements for how far out they require notice, you might find that a particular church is booked for your date well beyond the minimum time length. We reserved our church first thing, more than a year before the day we wanted to be married.</div>

newlyseliski · October 2012

Definitely determine the marriage prep arrangement ahead of time with the parish that you'd like to get married at! If it's 6 hours away from where you and fi are now... chances are that it's in a different diocese and has different requirements and you'd need to get it ok'd between both of the parishes. I've had several friends do their marriage prep through a different parish than the one they were married at and in one case they did their prep locally in St. Paul and were married at her parents' home parish in Prairie du Chein, WI. I'd also recommend doing prep sooner than later because it can get lost in the shuffle the closer you get to the wedding!

Chloeagh · October 2012

Thanks for the advice. That all makes sense and I would definitely like to have everything sorted out soon. It's crazy to think about how soon we are going to have to start doing all of this!

When/How to do marriage prep

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