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Permission for Catholic Wedding Outside of Church

missrizzymissrizzy member
in Illinois-Chicago
My fiancé and I very much want to have our ceremony and reception at Morton Arboretum or some other outdoor venue. Even though we're not regular attendees for mass these days, we do want to raise our future children Catholic and have been told that it makes things less complicated if we have our marriage acknowledged by the Catholic church.

From the research I've done, it seems that having a priest perform a marriage ceremony outside of the church is extremely rare. Does anyone know of any situations where there was a way to obtain approval for an outdoor ceremony or any priests/parishes that have received permission from the bishop to conduct one in the Chicago suburbs?
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Re: Permission for Catholic Wedding Outside of Church

  • KatWAGKatWAG member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    edited January 2015
    missrizzy said:
    My fiancé and I very much want to have our ceremony and reception at Morton Arboretum or some other outdoor venue. Even though we're not regular attendees for mass these days, we do want to raise our future children Catholic and have been told that it makes things less complicated if we have our marriage acknowledged by the Catholic church.

    From the research I've done, it seems that having a priest perform a marriage ceremony outside of the church is extremely rare. Does anyone know of any situations where there was a way to obtain approval for an outdoor ceremony or any priests/parishes that have received permission from the bishop to conduct one in the Chicago suburbs?

    It is not extremely rare. It is completely against the rules of the Catholic Church. And just wanting to get married outside is a laughable reason to attempt to gain permission from the Bishop.

    Getting married is one of the 7 Holy Sacraments and its not taken lightly. Go meet with your Priest so they can explain this in more detail. Or post on the Catholic weddings board.

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  • creato2304creato2304 member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its Name Dropper First Comment
    missrizzy!

    My FI and I were not practicing Catholics at the time when we booked our ceremony venue which happened to be a greenhouse. I asked my Deacon if he would be able to perform the ceremony for us and he said that was a big no-no. We made the decision to switch it to having it at our church because we received all of our sacraments and do not want our children to grow up without a church they can come to to worship anytime they want. I want to be a good example for them by showing them that I practice my faith....although it is not on a regular basis, I still practice. I am by all means not telling you what to do but the deciding factor for me was at the end of the day will I be happy with the decisions that I make? After all they effect more people than we know.

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