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Wedding Woes
ktrz
member
Family induced Catholic guilt....
in Wedding Woes
My fiance and I were both raised devoutly Catholic. We both attended Catholic schools and our families are still practicing Catholics. We however, are not. We have both bonded over our unique spiritual beliefs and we were planning to have a non-religious based ceremony for our March 2013 wedding. We are not getting married in a church and want our wedding to reflect our love, not religious belief.
Today I received a package from my extrememly devout Godmother. She sent us a Catholic prayer book for spouses, pictures from my first sacrament, a card professing how divine it is to have Christ as the center of your marriage, and note detailing her excitment over our upcoming sacrament. I feel so distraught as I do not want to create drama with her. I love her so much and want her to be a part of my day but know that I am going to get bashed with Catholic guilt. Any advice on how to deal with all of this?
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Re: Family induced Catholic guilt....
"thank you for the gift, it was very nice of you to think of us" then ignore/redirect any future questions/comments.
For the record, Mr. Kuus and I were raised devoutishly Catholic, too (not devoutly like normal people, but Slovak devout), and also didn't want a Catholic wedding. The older relatives moaned and wrung their hands, and we responded by having a Yoruba priest say a small prayer so that it was technically a religious ceremony. Luckily our families have a pretty good sense of humor.
I stopped attending church in college. my husband still attends somewhat regularly. I'm basically agnostic.
i agreed to get married in the church to make my relatives and DK happy. We had my daughter baptized in the church for the same reason. I really didn't care, so I just went along with it. My ILs (especially MIL) tend to make a huge deal out of religious stuff. She gave us this gigantic "Infant of Prague" (Jesus) statue for our wedding shower. I kept it out in the house when we lived int he same city and they visited regularly - now that we live 1600 miles away, the thing is buried in the closet with the rest of the religious gifts that she has given us over the years.
the thank you and ignore is generally what i do now. "thank you for the lovely baptism prayer book" *puts it in the closet in case Wolverine is interested when she is old enough to understand* i know better than to get into it with them over religion.
the only time i have ever made a stand is when i was KU and they were telling me that we need to send our kid to Catholic school. NO - we did not buy a house in one of the best ranked school districts in the city/state to pay thousands of dollars every year in school taxes, and then again in tuition to send our kid to Catholic school. I went to public schools, and I turned out just fine. ;-)
I definitely like Barbie's response for this situation. I'd say warn the woman if she genuinely expected a Catholic wedding, but since she doesn't, and only wants to pressure you into having one, just smile and thank her and let her be unshocked at your wedding when it's nonreligious.
She may be expecting that you'll have a Catholic wedding, because according to the Church, for a baptised Catholic like yourself to have any other kind of wedding isn't real. And if the Church is as central to her life as your post seems to imply, she may believe the same thing. Also, even if she is aware that your faith is in question, she may not be aware how "in question" it is. It may not be an attempt to be passive aggressive on her part, she may honestly believe that you are going to get married in the church because your "questioning" was just "a phase" in her mind, and that you would know that anything *other* than a church marriage isn't "real".
I'm not, in any way, saying you have to get married in the church to appease your family. It's your life, and your choice. I am just trying to give you the other side of the coin, as she might be thinking about it.
i agree with barbie. say thank you graciously and move on. you don't have to be a practicing catholic to give someone a polite thank you for a thoughtful gift. and even if your godmother had an ulterious motive or a hidden message, just be the bigger person. let it go.