Father-in-law strikes again...

[Mickey]

After all…I am a Catholic…they hate Catholics…so they kind of hate me by default.

Thoughts?

I am not saying that your future in-laws are your enemies–but these verses from Romans 12 come to mind:

14: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
15: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
16: Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited.
17: Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
18: If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.
19: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
20: No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.”
21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

[JMJDevotee]

Brad,
I am sorry you and your fiance are going through this difficult struggle. I agree with all who have posted. Continue with your plans to marry, speak to your priest about this in your pre-marrital counseling, reassure your fiance as much as you can that you love her and this issue is not insurmountable. I speak from personal experience when I tell you to make sure you and your fiance are on the same page when it comes to in-laws who don’t agree with the Church. My family would intentionally plan functions to ocurr during Mass and other holy times bc they knew I would be torn and I was raised that “Family comes first.” It too a while for me to realize that while family is important, it is not first and should not be. My family (non-Catholic) thinks that “the Church” is taking up my time, but in reality it is my faith, my desires that keep in the Church. The solution, keep your faith. Let them see you live it and love it and they will understand in time…not accept it but understand its significance in your life.

There are many ways to have an inexpensive but elegant wedding. We had a small ceremony with a few family members (my DH comes from a large Italian Catholic family) with a reception at our home later. Neither of my sisters nor my parents attended, although they were invited We asked a friend who bakes to make a cake, and each of our family (who we knew would come) to make an appetizer, another friend provided the booze (well, we ain’t baptists now are we?? :whacky: ), put some music on the CD and had a really great party. :dancing: If you want ideas or tips, just ask, I am sure many people have great ideas.

God bless and you will be in my prayers!!

Pax Vobiscum

 

[BlestOne]

Brad,
Been there, done that… I paid for my own wedding and did it my way, my mom and my inlaws came…some of the sisters and brothers on each side didn’t though. Here are a few thoughts:

Small wedding, 2 bridesmaids, 2 groomsmen
made my own bouquets, buttoneers, etc and flower arrangements for the altar(total $100 for all).
All bridesmaids dresses were bought at Kohls 1/2 price (total $65 for 2 dresses).
Got my dress on ebay brand new designer dress…$45.99 and $20 shipping…they threw in a free crinolin.
Rehearsal dinner…at favorite restaurant $113.
Musician fee: $100
Pastors fee $100
Reception at a local tourist attraction: $800
DJ at reception: free (it was my wedding gift)
Alcohol (had to bring my own) <$100
Printed my own wedding invitations from a kit: $15
tuxes (3 of them)$135
shoes…on clearance!!! under $20 for all 3 pairs combined!

Total was under $1650 and we had a great time!

The biggest savings were the dresses and the flowers…
I made the mothers corsages, buttoneers for the guys, bouquet for the Holy Family, brides bouquet and 2 bridesmaids along with 2 vase arrangements with roses for the altar and 2 huge vases with gladioli for in front of the lecterns. Pastor saw me making them and was astonished I could do it so nicely and so cheaply…

 

[Stac4Grace]

It has been my experience that the realtionship gets mended aboiut the same time the first granchild comes along.

I wish this would have been true for us but in my case it didn’t happen until almost five years into the marriage with two kids and another on the way. But hey, it happend none the less and we are happy. All in Gods time.

 

[LIMolly0721]

Brad,
Been there, done that… I paid for my own wedding and did it my way, my mom and my inlaws came…some of the sisters and brothers on each side didn’t though. Here are a few thoughts:

Small wedding, 2 bridesmaids, 2 groomsmen
made my own bouquets, buttoneers, etc and flower arrangements for the altar(total $100 for all).
All bridesmaids dresses were bought at Kohls 1/2 price (total $65 for 2 dresses).
Got my dress on ebay brand new designer dress…$45.99 and $20 shipping…they threw in a free crinolin.
Rehearsal dinner…at favorite restaurant $113.
Musician fee: $100
Pastors fee $100
Reception at a local tourist attraction: $800
DJ at reception: free (it was my wedding gift)
Alcohol (had to bring my own) <$100
Printed my own wedding invitations from a kit: $15
tuxes (3 of them)$135
shoes…on clearance!!! under $20 for all 3 pairs combined!

Total was under $1650 and we had a great time!

The biggest savings were the dresses and the flowers…
I made the mothers corsages, buttoneers for the guys, bouquet for the Holy Family, brides bouquet and 2 bridesmaids along with 2 vase arrangements with roses for the altar and 2 huge vases with gladioli for in front of the lecterns. Pastor saw me making them and was astonished I could do it so nicely and so cheaply…

…and a blessed Holy Sacrament of Marriage in Christ’s Church…priceless.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Hi Sadie, I speak from experience, my family is very mixed religion wise.

Plan a public wedding in their home church with all the fixings because a wedding is not only for the bride but is for the mother of the bride too. All her life her Mom pictured her daughter being married by their Pastor. Invite your catholic priest to attend to offer up communion during the service. The Protestant Pastor can serve communion to her side of the family, and the Catholic Priest can serve communion to your side of the family. You both should take communion from both the pastor and priest as a sign of union of two families.
Be sure everything has been paid for before the wedding and that the checks have cleared the bank.

If they are not willing to go with this joint communion service, then have a private wedding at your catholic church, asking members of your church to help with the bills.

Expect her pastor to preach a sermon on salvation as he understands it.

 

[4HisChurch]

Hi Sadie, I speak from experience, my family is very mixed religion wise.

Plan a public wedding in their home church with all the fixings because a wedding is not only for the bride but is for the mother of the bride too. All her life her Mom pictured her daughter being married by their Pastor. Invite your catholic priest to attend to offer up communion during the service. The Protestant Pastor can serve communion to her side of the family, and the Catholic Priest can serve communion to your side of the family. You both should take communion from both the pastor and priest as a sign of union of two families.
Be sure everything has been paid for before the wedding and that the checks have cleared the bank.

If they are not willing to go with this joint communion service, then have a private wedding at your catholic church, asking members of your church to help with the bills.

Expect her pastor to preach a sermon on salvation as he understands it.

I disagree with much of this. Catholics are not allowed to take communion in a Protestant Church because we are not in union with them. To do so would send the wrong message. A wedding is for the couple–it is a sacrament. It is NOT for the mother of the bride or groom. That is a recipe for a very strained marriage.

 

[Brendan]

Invite your catholic priest to attend to offer up communion during the service. The Protestant Pastor can serve communion to her side of the family, and the Catholic Priest can serve communion to your side of the family.

Joint Communion services are prohibited by Church Law. A priest could (rightly) get in big trouble for doing such a thing. It is a very false sign of a unity that does not exist yet. If a priest did such a thing, it would be a public declaration that he considered them to be Catholics, which would be a lie. It’s a bad thing when priests lie.

You both should take communion from both the pastor and priest as a sign of union of two families.

Also prohibited for the same reason. Catholics may not accept communion from any other Christian community other than the Orthodox, and even then only in extreme circumstances.

 

[pagan_soul]

Naturally, he is not going to be thrilled about the conversion of his daughter to God’s true church.

Just a thought. This “God’s true church” part hints that maybe you have a bit of a non-respectful attitude towards his beliefs, so he gives it back to you.

Whats the saying, you get what you give out?

 

[InTheWilderness]

While I am not a theologian or canon law expert, two ideas on this thread struck me as being a bit less than ideal.

Someone suggested that there should be a ceremony at the in-laws church, and then a real Catholic wedding later. I don’t think that is good, because it sends confusing messages about the sacrament of marriage to everyone involved.

Also, the idea of blending in a Catholic communion service as part of a Protestant service, seems a bit odd. In particular, I find the idea of the couple receiving communion from both the Catholic Church and Protestant church to be bizarre, particularly since the bride is in the process of converting. This again seems to send mixed signals about one of the sacraments of the Church. I also seem to recall that only a bishop can give permission for inter-communion, and then only certain conditions.

As a personal example of how things can sometimes work out in the end, my own parents were in a similar situation. My dad has always been Catholic. My mom was raised Methodist. They were married in the Catholic parish in my mother’s home town (not a mass, since she did not convert at the time). My grandmother had publicly said she would not attend. However, on the day of the wedding, my great-grandmother more or less dragged her to the wedding. The reception was at my grandparents house. From the wedding photos I have seen, it was all very nice, but not the sort of extravagant event many weddings are today. My mom did convert later on.

I bet you can work out something with the priest regarding arrangements. Maybe he can even offer some tips on how to make this go better. Also, you should be going through some sort of marriage prep process with someone from the Church. I know in the US it usually is a six month process of preparation. If you haven’t already spoken with a priest about any of this, you should explore the various options. Also, make certain that you make all decisions together with your fiancé. You are going to soon be one, so you had better start preparing for that.

Keep in mind it is possible to have a cheep and good party all at once for a reception. While not exactly conventional, there isn’t any reason you can’t do a pot-luck dinner, or a cook out, or any number of sensible options. Find friends and family members that can help out by doing some cooking, decorating, sewing, or what not. If one of my friends needed someone to help cook for their reception, I would be willing to. My dad was the bar tender for his sister’s wedding reception (which was at the home of a family member). You can probably find all sorts of innovative ways to have a great wedding and reception.

Some people may put as much money into their wedding as into a new car, but there isn’t really a need to.

What is really important is the sacramental union between you and your bride. It won’t matter how much you invest in flowers or a limo if you don’t make the right investment into the marriage itself. I know of people who spent tens of thousands of dollars on the most amazing weddings, only to wind up divorced a year later. I suspect they put more effort into all that extra stuff than into the sacramental element of the marriage. If you have a good marriage, that will be worth more than a million wedding photos.

 

[rayne89]

Although my situation was different because I wasn’t practicing my faith at the time that decided to get married. My parents did not approve. I was just out of highschool and my fiance had just graduated boot camp in the US Navy. We didn’t have squat for money but I didn’t expect my parents to pay for something they were against.

We had a very small wedding with the reception in my inlaws basement. We had the wedding late in the evening after dinner and only served dessert. My mom did slip me some money on sly to pay for flowers and the cake. We had a maid of honor, a best man and a flower girl. I let my friend wear a dress from a wedding she had already stood up in and the best man wore a suit. Hubby wore his uniform. I bought a wedding dress “off the rack” at a considerable discount.

In the end my parents did attend and my father even gave me away. We did eventually have our marriage convalidated. And my parents love my husband very much.

If her parents are against it please don’t expect them to pay. I never regretted having a small wedding. Don’t depend on them especially since they seem to be using it to control the situation. And if I were you I would put a lot of miles between you and the inlaws after the wedding. This is a man who expects people to bend to him and I don’t that that will change soon after the wedding.

 

[Julianna]

Wow, sounds exactly like my parents experience.

1956…my dad is first generation Catholic Italian, and my mother southern Baptist from SC. Oh, yeah, there was trouble. My southern grandmother would give my mother booklets to read about Catholics. Her friends would tell her that in order to marry a Catholic she had to sleep with priest. Oh, yeah…but my mother didn’t believe it. On the other side, not only was my mother from the south, she was not Italian, and egads! she was not Catholic. Msgr. at dad’s church flatly refused to marry them. The pastor at my mothers church, said ok. The parish priest…God love him, said he didn’t see the problem of them marrying in the Catholic Church as long as they attended pre-marital counseling. My mother attended and asked every question she had heard about the church. She found that there were alot of “stories”…none of which are true.

My southern grandmother was ticked off, big time. My mother said she had to sign a piece of paper promising to raise any children from this marriage as Catholics. My grandmother was within a hair’s breath of not coming. She did attend, but didn’t stay long at the reception, because there was drinking and dancing.

Anyhow, my siblings and I were raised Catholic. My mother attended all the parent info sessions when we made our first penance, and first communion. (I made my confirmation as an adult)…she asked alot of questions to make sure she understood what we were supposed to do. She never converted to Catholicism, but she lived up to her promise, she said it was a promise to God, and she intended to keep it. In her family she is known as the “one who married the Catholic”. She brought us to her church and we learned about the Baptist church as well. When we went to SC in the summer time, I would attend church with my grandmother, and then attend mass with her neighbors down the street that were Catholic and from “up north”.

Brad, my dad passed away on May 9th of this year. September 3rd of this year would have been their 50th anniversary. Everyone of my mothers siblings has been divorced, some 2 and 3 times…to my southern grandmothers dismay.

My father and mother had 3 kids, (one of them me)…my mother never took bc pills…my fathers siblings had 1, and one sister had 2.

My mother is a yellow dog Democrat and a feminist. She raised us in the Church…and as she used to tell my grandmother…“yes, the kids are Catholic, but see, they don’t have horns on their head.”

You marry that woman Brad…if her father loves the Lord, he will walk his daughter down the ailse…

 

[rayne89]

You both should take communion from both the pastor and priest as a sign of union of two families.

This is absolutely forbidden by the church. Catholics are not allowed to take protestant communion. (And protestants are not allowed to take Catholic communion -but I believe his fiance will be Catholic by this time.)

 

[BlestOne]

…and a blessed Holy Sacrament of Marriage in Christ’s Church…priceless.

Exactly!!! In a year or two are you really going to care if you had a reception at that trendy new place or if your wedding was in the society page of the paper? Nope… you will hopefully be knee deep in diapers by that point and thanking God for every minute of it.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

“The problem is that her father is an evangelical fascist that hates Catholics for no reason other than he is ignorant.”

I stopped taking you seriously here. I’m surprised that hardly anyone took you to task for this blatant example of slander. Are you saying all evangelicals are fascists? How is he a fascist?

“This is absolutely forbidden by the church. Catholics are not allowed to take protestant communion. (And protestants are not allowed to take Catholic communion.”

**Another Shouldn’t it be a “Christian” communion? I find it interesting how some people complain about how non-catholics treat catholics on this forum yet I come across comments such as this. The sad thing is, the comment is true.

It’s also interesting how a catholic would be welcome by protestants to take communion in their church but catholics don’t extend that same welcome to protestants. I actually take offence to that.**

 

[rayne89]

“This is absolutely forbidden by the church. Catholics are not allowed to take protestant communion. (And protestants are not allowed to take Catholic communion.”

**Another Shouldn’t it be a “Christian” communion? I find it interesting how some people complain about how non-catholics treat catholics on this forum yet I come across comments such as this. The sad thing is, the comment is true. **

It’s also interesting how a catholic would be welcome by protestants to take communion in their church but catholics don’t extend that same welcome to protestants. I actually take offence to that.

Catholic communion and protestant communion are very different. Catholics believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood our Lord not symbolically but literally become the body and blood of Christ.

For a protestant to take Catholic communion that would be participating in something they don’t believe in, and for a Catholic to participate in protestant communion that would be publically participating in a communion service that is done symbolically and does not agree with what Catholics believe. It has absolutely nothing to do with not welcoming but in being truthful and not causing scandal by participating in something they don’t believe in.

If you are protestant would you have your infant children baptised in a Catholic church? To Catholics communion is a sacrament and is not taken lightly. Catholics must be in the state of grace and by participating you are saying you accept the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is not wise to start off a marriage with public scandal and a lie.

I’m sorry you took offense.

 

[jschwehm]

It’s also interesting how a catholic would be welcome by protestants to take communion in their church but catholics don’t extend that same welcome to protestants. I actually take offence to that

.

Actually, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod practices closed communion and Catholics would not be welcomed at that communion rail at their worship services.

Jeff S.

 

[mercygate]

Hi Sadie, I speak from experience, my family is very mixed religion wise.

Plan a public wedding in their home church with all the fixings because a wedding is not only for the bride but is for the mother of the bride too. All her life her Mom pictured her daughter being married by their Pastor. Invite your catholic priest to attend to offer up communion during the service. The Protestant Pastor can serve communion to her side of the family, and the Catholic Priest can serve communion to your side of the family. You both should take communion from both the pastor and priest as a sign of union of two families.

This is a canonical impossibility for a Catholic. The Blessed Sacrament is for Catholics in good standing, whose souls are in a state of Grace. It may be received only by those who believe and profess all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches.

The best you could hope for is that a Catholic priest could attend the wedding to bless the couple and to share in witnessing their vows. I would think that in a rabidly anti-Catholic congregation, the representative of the Whore of Babylon might not be allowed in the door.

Be sure everything has been paid for before the wedding and that the checks have cleared the bank.

Going into debt for a wedding, or planning to use cash wedding gifts to pay for the party is stupid and vulgar.

If they are not willing to go with this joint communion service, then have a private wedding at your catholic church, asking members of your church to help with the bills.

Absolutely not. The bills are the responsibility of the family of the bride. These young people are supposed to be adults. Living within your means is one of the hallmarks of adulthood. Our culture has exploded the wedding business to insanity.

 

[mercygate]

**Another Shouldn’t it be a “Christian” communion? I find it interesting how some people complain about how non-catholics treat catholics on this forum yet I come across comments such as this. The sad thing is, the comment is true. **

It’s also interesting how a catholic would be welcome by protestants to take communion in their church but catholics don’t extend that same welcome to protestants. I actually take offence to that.

This is not a matter of “welcome.” The Last Supper was not a free-for-all. Any Protestant is welcome to come and take instruction, to be received into the Catholic Church, and then to receive the Sacraments of the Church.

It was not until the 20th Century that any Christian body had open Communion. For Catholics, it comes down to Paul’s observation that those who eat and drink “without discerning the body” – without understanding that this IS the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ – eat and drink judgment upon themselves.

The theology of Communion in Protestant churches is utterly antithetical to the Eucharistic theology of the Apostolic Churches. It would be disrespect for the truth if not raw hypocrisy to have open Communion. The Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian life; we handle it with great care.

 

[rmcmullan]

scale down your wedding plans, even if it means, you two, your witnesses and the deacon in the Catholic Church after evening Mass on Saturday, and dinner afterward at your favorite restaurant and an overnight honeymoon at a nice hotel in town. Send the parents an invitation, and then afterward very polite, nice letter (get someone to help you edit it) saying how much you missed them. Once the first grandchild arrives they usually come around.

I’m going to have to go with this as a wise course. You’re marrying into the family, it’s not just the girl. So you want to make it as easy as possible for the girl and her parents to reconcile as well as welcome you. Avoid any shows of or excuses for temper. Let them know how sorry you are they won’t be there even. Be gracious and humble and respectful towards them.