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Any Catholic Military Brides?

afrenchprincessafrenchprincess
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in Moms and Maids
Hello Militay Brides!
I don't post on this board as I am not a military bride. However, I was wondering if there were any Catholic military brides? Becaue my fiance is overseas and I am Catholic and really wanting to have a Catholic wedding in my church. However, the fiance visa through the U.S requires that once he arrives we must marry within 90 days and there is 6 month marriage preparation period for the Catholic church. Obviously, we can not do that. I am wondering have any of you tried to get married or know of anybody that may have been trying to get married within the Catholic church before deployment or other military circumstances? I have heard that people in the military have gotten exceptiosn to the Catholic marriage prep in certain situations. I am just trying to see what you all did.
Thanks so much for the help!
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Re: Any Catholic Military Brides?

  • MairePoppyMairePoppy mod
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    edited December 2011
    The only way to find out for sure, is to call your priest. Do it asap. He may allow you to start pre-cana before you fi arrives. I read on the Catholic board that some churches allow online classes.

             http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_catholic-weddings_finished-online-pre-cana-class-today-great-option-those-of-apart
                       
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  • tldhtldh member
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    edited December 2011
    You may also want to post this on the Military Brides board
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  • HerNameIsNikHerNameIsNik
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    Well...I am a military bride. I am not Catholic, but my FI is. We had a lot of trouble trying to have a Catholic wedding here in WA state. When he was stationed here, he did not immediately join a church, so because he is not a member of a local chuch, few have been willing to work with us. Because I am not interested in converting, fewer yet. Because he's in the military, and has a difficult schedule with long hours and was on-call and unable to attend mandatory couples-weekends, even fewer...as in...none.

    They all wanted the 6 months of pre-marital prep, plus the couples weekends, plus 6 months of mass attendance before he could be an official member, and we could not be married unless he was a member. We tried several Catholic churches, none would budge and waive the couples weekends that he was not allowed to attend because he had to work those days as a part of his military service.

    You could try the on-post chaplain. We almost did that but they had classes for me to take that I was unable to due to my work schedule, and they would not marry us on a federal  holiday weekend, and we already had the reception booked for 11/12.

    What we did find is that it's super easy to get our marriage blessed by a Catholic priest after we are married. This doesn't help if you want an actual Catholic wedding ceremony by a priest or wedding mass but it does mean that your marriage would be recognized by the Catholic church. We chose to have a non-denominational Reverend do our wedding ceremony, using some of the beautiful traditional language that is used in a Catholic ceremony and that we will have our wedding blessed in my FI's childhood Catholic church in VA the next time we go to visit.

    Also, here in the Pacific Northwest, the Catholic diocese is particularly strict about such things. On the East Coast where my FI is from, and where I have Catholic family, everyone says we would have had no trouble.
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