Churches in Philadelphia

Re: Churches in Philadelphia

• lauren123455 member

  

  March 2012

  Old St. Marys (where I'm getting married) and Old St. Josephs are your closest options.  They're across the street from one another on 4th Street near Locust.  St. Augustines is also fairly close by, on 4th Street near Vine Street. St. John the Evangelist is on 13th near Chestnut, so that's not terribly far either.  They all book fairly far in advance, so I'd start contacting them for availablilty soon. Good luck!

  

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• krazykramer

  

  March 2012

  Check out www.phillychurchproject.com

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• broodc2 member

  

  March 2012

  Hi ag,
  
  lauren gave a pretty good run down of the churches.  We're getting married at Old Saint Mary's and we're having our reception next door to your venue at The Downtown Club.  We blocked off rooms at the Omni.  It's a nice 4 square block area.  Guests shouldn't need to walk more than 2 blocks at a time (reception isn't immediately after ceremony). 
  
  We chatted about this topic in a recent post a few weeks ago.  It should have lots of good info if you use the search function.  Old Saint Mary's has the "cheapest" donation fee of around $1100, including organist which is required by them. 
  
  I would take her advice and book EARLY as these places get reserved very fast.  For instance, I see you are getting married in April, 2013.  We already have Old Saint Mary's reserved for the earlier slot on April 13, 2013 for our wedding.  The church was high on our "get done" list given the limited number of churches versus the large amount of weddings in and around center/old city.  If you think about it, there are 4, maybe 5 catholic churches in what I would call very safe areas near center city.  If each one does two ceremonies on a Saturday, that's a maximum capacity of 8-10 weddings.  If you're thinking of doing the earlier time, that's only 4 or 5 ceremonies.  Taking stock of all the venues nearby (ritz, 4 seasons, bellvue, mushulu, warwick, hyatt, cescaphe, curtis, DTC, Ball room at ben, TOT, omni, marriott, sheraton, rittenhouse, Penn, etc.), I would get on the stick.    

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• bridetobe71412

  

  March 2012 edited March 2012

  I agree with brood. Definitely book very early!
  
  When we originally looked into churches, it was 13 months before our wedding and we still had trouble getting our date. Old St. Mary's and Old St. Joseph's were already booked for our date for all time slots. We ended up getting St. John the Evangelist, but the "donation" fee is pretty hefty and it doesn't include the ceremony musicians, which you have to book through them (or pay a penalty). I think that's why our date was still available when we looked.
  
  Good luck!

  

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• ysl1983

  

  March 2012

  I looked at the churches mentioned above but decided to go with St. Rita of Cascia.  It's not in the most glamorous portion of philly but I love the church, the priest that handled our paperwork, and they also have a parking lot.
  
  Definitely give them a visit.  it's beautiful inside

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• DPSphillywedding member

  

  March 2012

  My fiancé and I looked at several of the Catholic Churches in Center City. We found that if you do not belong to the parish, it's important to reach out really early in advance and let the church drive the date. The staff at St. Augustine's in Old City was unbelievably helpful during our search. They were booked solid during our desired timeframe but recommended several other parishes and gave us contacts to call.

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• ag672670 member

  

  March 2012

  Thank you all so much for your advice! Now our issue seems to be that not many churches (if any) hold weddings on Sundays in center city Philadelphia. They typically hold mass all day or have baptisms so they do not have weddings at all. This includes the Basilica, St. Augustines, and a few others we tried contacting. Does anybody know of any churches that do marry on Sundays but are still very pretty at the same time? I know that sounds terrible...but thanks in advance!

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