My girlfriend and I have been talking about marriage ideas a lot lately. One idea we had, which I think would be amazing, would be to get married at World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011. Does anyone know if this would be possible? If so, do you think the Pope would officiate? I suppose we’d just have to write to him and ask, right? Would that seem disrespectful?
DL82, hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t think getting married at World Youth Day is an option for any Catholic.
In my experience with the wedding planning process, a Catholic wedding is pretty much limited to the parish of which either of you belong. Your priest has pastorial authority over you. As such, what surprised me is that we actually would have needed permission from either of our priest’s to get married at a Catholic site not affliated with our parish.
I had always heard of needing permissions and despensations for the bishop to marry non-Catholics, but till I started planning our wedding, I never realized I was going out of bounds even by calling a parish I didn’t belong to before arranging things with either of our priests.
I think the reason I had not heard of this is because it is more common than not for the Catholic individual to have not registered at a parish after he/she has been confirmed. As such, when these Catholics who don’t belong to a parish seek to get married, the first thing they’re told they have to do is get registered at the parish.
In addition to this, having a wedding at your own parish will be simpler to plan and 10 times less expensive. If you still want the whole Pope thing, you can get a special papal blessing in Rome. There is a special section that newlyweds are seated and the new wives often do wear their wedding gowns again.
