My son is Catholic and his fiancee is not of any particular faith. They want to be married by a Catholic priest outdoors. No priest will marry them outside of the church building. Can they be married in a outdoor ceremony and then have their marriage blessed in the Catholic Church? Or is it possible to be married in the Church first and then have a simple blessing ceremony outside? I really would like to see them have a Catholic marriage.
Think back to when your son was a child. Suppose he came to you and said, “Dad, I don’t like the school’s rules for graduation. I want to drop out, work at the local McDonald’s, and maybe later I’ll go back and take the GED test to certify that I have graduated high school. But, in the meantime, could you give me the car for graduation like you promised?” What would be your reaction?
What your son is contemplating doing is circumventing the Church’s law governing marriage so that he and his fiancee can be married outdoors, a form of ceremony they prefer. (You haven’t reported that his fiancee is unable in conscience to be married according to Catholic ritual. She apparently is quite willing to have a priest witness the marriage, so long as it happens outdoors.) Maybe they’ll later petition the Church to recognize the validity of their marriage, maybe not; but in the meantime they will certainly want you to treat the outdoor ceremony as a full-blown wedding with all the accompanying entertainment and material bounty.
Your son is now an adult and you cannot force him to be married according to Catholic ritual, as you once could have forced him to remain in school and fulfill the requirements for graduation. But you can make clear to your son that, if it is important to him that you attend and participate in his wedding, that he has the responsibility to make certain the wedding fulfills the requirements of Catholic marital law. He and his fiancee should sit down with his pastor to figure out a way to make that happen, which may involve mature compromise on their part by having the marriage celebrated in a church.
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