Another Catholic Question... Pre-Cana?

x3Harmony534 · May 2010

Hey ladies. I have been a member of the same Catholic church since I was a baby. My fiancee wants to have his uncle who is a presbyterian preacher perform the ceremony, which is fine with me. I thought it would be nice to also include my own faith & have a dual ceremony with a Catholic priest. Our wedding is going to be outside at the Lake Mary Events Center, but our priest said he would perform the ceremony if we went through the Pre-Cana wedding preperation stuff. The problem is FI is not religious at ALL. He wants his uncle to perform the ceremony since he is a family member and it would be meaningful for him for that reason. How awkward would it be for my nonreligious fiancee to have to go through this with me? It's not the end of the world if we don't end up having a priest there, I just want to get a better idea of the process so I can decide whether or not I want to subject FI to it or not.

lol Thanks!

Theresa626 · May 2010

wait, what? Your priest said he would perform a ceremony outside? The catholic church forbids wedding ceremonies outside of a catholic parish church. I can't imagine how you got past this unless your priest does not realize your plans. If he is marrying you outside then I'm going to guess it won't be recognized by the Catholic church and it will just be a civil ceremony.

Now, if you want to have the priest perform it and you're willing to have it in a Catholic church then you can have the priest do the homily perhaps and the pastor perform the actual marriage vows in the Catholic ceremony. Many priests will be flexible with things like that. You will have to go through pre-cana though. I really don't think pre-cana is very religious at all. I really enjoyed it and I was apprehensive about it. You take a personality test and then discuss your answers with a couple from the church. YOu can't fail it but it brings up issues you may not have discussed before and gives you an opportunity to get on the same page. Then you go on an engaged encounter retreat for the weekend. At the retreat, we met with a financial planner and a child therapist who gave parenting advice. They talked about the five love languages and we did a few different types of communication exercises. We did nice activities too meant to build up and complement the other parnter like writing love letters to each other. We had a workbook where we talked about tons of aspects of marriage and many different questions. We didn't share anything private with other people, just each other. The only religious part of the whole thing was a one hour explanation of natural family planning and then mass on Sunday and a blessing of our engagement rings on Sat. We both really enjoyed it and it did not force religion.

If you are not religious at all and don't care about having your wedding recognized by the Catholic church but you do want to have elements of Catholic culture in your ceremony, I suggest looking up www.rentapriest.com. It is a bunch of priests who left the preisthood to get married or something. They are not in good standing with the catholic church but they can perform a catholic like marriage for you and you can pretend.

Maggie214624 · May 2010

Does the priest know that the ceremony is not taking place in the church? I only ask because it is rare that priest will marry outside of the church.

x3Harmony534 · May 2010

He knows it will be outside. Now I'm not sure if this would be an "offically" recognized marriage, but he would be willing to do something or other to try to include the catholic aspect of my faith. This is all hearsay from a conversation between the priest and my father, but regardless what was gathered was he would show up, and perform part of the ceremony, which is all that is really important to me. He said another option would be to have a "second wedding" recognized by the church later on down the road if we choose to.

mlharbis · May 2010

My friends mom had one wedding and once her husbands annullment went through they had a second wedding recognized by the church. There was a lot more to it than that but thats the basics of it.
I think that pre-cana is more to get you thinking about different things with your FI than you may have discussed. It aslo is to discuss making a budget and other things like having children like Theresa said. It is not so much focused on a specific religion but more on the two of you. FI and I just did our counseling through the episcopal church (I am episcopal he is baptist) and we enjoyed it. We are both religious but didnt feel it was very denomination specific.

irisheyezfsu · May 2010

actually catholic churches will do weddings outside as long as it is a place that mass is held regularly, that is the catch. So some churches in florida might hold a monthly mass on the beach or something so that is possible but only a few I know do this.

As for having a wedding earlier, the church really looks down on having a civil ceramony and then later a religious ceremony, or two different religious ceremonies. Having grown up in the church and going to catholic school till I was 18, I always was taught this stuff in marriage and morality classes. They want people who truly want to be married into the catholic community, not trying to get around loo poles.

My FI is jewish and we are planning getting married in the catholic church, took him a long time to come around to the idea of pre-cana. Was more concerned they were going to tell us how to live our lives. After much convincing and me continueing to say this is how I want to be married he came around. It really is good prep to things that will arise in marriage.

meghanmcadams · May 2010

From my understanding Pre-Cana is not just geared towards Catholics, when we attended they mentioned that other faiths will send their engaged couples to the class as well. They did not speak about anything strongly faith based, which actually surprised me.

irisheyezfsu · May 2010

well the focus test (personality test) was developed by two secular psychologists hence the reason there are issues on there that are controversial to the catholic church teachings. This however has been measured for a long time as a good indicator where couples need to work on communication. Many other christian denominations and other faiths have picked up the Focus test and now require some pre-marriage counseling.

Also if you have pre-marriage counseling the state of florida will cut you a deal on your marriage liscense.

irisheyezfsu · May 2010

also studies show that couples how have pre-marriage counseling of any kind or process have a lower rate of divorce

x3Harmony534 · May 2010

Thanks ladies, I really appreciate it! It doesn't sound bad at all, I think he'll survive it. lol I'll need to talk to my priest personally and find out what exactly he is willing to do at our wedding. He KNOWS the location & he said the church is becoming more & more accepting of marriages being held outside of the church itself. We'll see, I'll let you know. Thanks!

jmucheech21 · May 2010

Harmony, please keep us posted on what he ends up saying about holding the wedding outside. We have several reasons we want to have the wedding outside, some of them actually being religious (we are both pretty spiritual, just not very practicing with our specific organized religions). I always wanted to have a Catholic wedding and Catholicism is something that has been important to me, unfortunately I just haven't been as proactive over the last 3 years as I had been in the past. I need to get back into it. My fiance is very cool with the idea of a Catholic wedding, but not so comfortable with getting married in a church (another one of our reasons). Anyway, I'm rambling. Just let me know what you find out.

Theresa626 · May 2010

jmumeech... for the wedding to be held outside, the bishop has to approve it. Our bishop is kind of a stick in the mud. There are a lot of contrasting decisions they make. For example, they don't allow any weddings to be held at Disney because you can't have Mass outside of a church. Yet, they have priests who regularly celebrate mass for Disney tourists on Disney property on Sundays. They always tell you you can't get married on the beach or outside because it's not a Catholic church but I've been to mass outside plenty of times on a Sunday and even a mass at the beach. So, it seems to be that it is only ok to do it outside if it is not a wedding.

irisheyezfsu · May 2010

from what I was taught in school, you can get married outside with the catholic church if a mass is held regularly there. It isn't about the building it is about the service and sacrament. That is at least what they taught at Bishop Moore High School. We had a mass outside sometimes at the school. Anyway, Orlando currently doesn't have a bishop, Bishop Wenski went to Miami. From what I know he is a pretty liberal bishop. He sat on the council of bishops in america for reform in illegal immigration. He also rode a harley haha.

jmucheech21 · May 2010

Haha, ok, thanks again ladies. I'll do some research. Like I said in my other post its great to just have a place to start!!!

Another Catholic Question... Pre-Cana?

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