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Old 22nd October 2009, 02:10 PM   #2
Ageing Grace
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 738
Re: wedding place please help..

Hi, Jerubbaal

Congratulations on your marriage!

I'm afraid it may be difficult for you to have your wedding in the catholic church. The vatican takes marriage very seriously in terms of its holy significance. You would be required to be confirmed into the Roman Catholic faith (this would be a problem for you as you would have to renounce your church), take the sacraments and maybe even attend classes in the catchecism. Some people do go through all this to keep their spouse happy, but for you it would throw up a conflict between your chosen church and the roman one.

Since your wife doesn't seem to be aware of these issues, I assume she's not very active within her church. Even she may find the amount of church involvement too heavy! I know of several catholic couples who decided not to marry in their own church for those reasons.

If either of you have been divorced you cannot marry in a catholic church, no matter how many rituals you submit to.

How to get round this? Well, I have known catholic churches that are less strict - but they were in South America! I don't know if there would be catholic churches in the Philippines that are similarly lax? It might be worth looking into ...

In the UK, the Church of England (C of E) tends to be more flexible and less pushy. As you can have a lovely white wedding in a beautiful old church, with the traditional service and less of the hassle, it is the popular choice here. The 'high' version of C of E - Anglican - is far more like catholicism, and comes with many of the same conditions, but would not require your conversion.

You probably know that certain requirements have to be fulfilled before you can marry in an English church (I can't speak for other countries). You have to publish banns at the related church where you live, and there must be a residential connection to the church where you marry. Most C of E churches will stretch a few points, but you absolutely must discuss all of this with the vicar or priest, and follow the requirements s/he specifies.

I hope this is some help and am sorry it's not as simple as you'd hoped.
Be happy together!

AG
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