Getting married "back home"

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I had a hard time finding other threads on this–if this has been discussed recently, pointers to relevant threads would be appreciated.

My girlfriend and I are discerning marriage and, in our more lighthearted talks on the subject, we have discussed where, geographically speaking, we would want to get married. We are both originally from the Midwest (we met in college in Illinois), but I moved to Seattle, Washington last June and she’s moving out here this July.

Our families and friends almost exclusively live in Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. Coming to Seattle for a wedding would be a huge burden for many of them. On the other hand, we don’t really have a parish home in Illinois. I no longer feel strongly connected to any of my old parishes there, and her preferred parish, which is at the Newman Center at our school, will only marry students and young alumni.

I strongly believe that the sacraments should be celebrated with one’s own parish, and I feel strange about the idea of leaving my Seattle parish behind to celebrate this sacrament elsewhere. On the other hand, being able to be present would mean a great deal to our families and friends, so on the overall I’m pretty torn.

What are people’s experiences with this kind of thing? Is this something that’s much more common than I realize? Am I overstating the importance of receiving the sacraments in my (or my girlfriend’s) “true” parish home? (It probably goes without saying that I’m overthinking this in general, but that’s par for the course for me… 😛 )

Any thoughts or reflections on this would be very much appreciated. Thanks!
 
It would be of huge convenience to have the wedding somewhere in the midwest. You may not have a parish there, however you can qualify for the parishoner rate of your parents parish, this is allowable in our area of the midwest (and I am assuming all other locales as well), given all the documentation is collected and you have gone through the qualification checklist, and also, have taken all the necessary steps/procedures the church requires for the nuptials.

Most parishes(maybe all) need at least four months notice in advance of the Wedding Date. You are supposed to attend pre cana, so I do not know how that would work given your situation, it is definitely something you need to speak with the parish or a priest concerning your distance and current LDR locales.

You can qualify to be married at any Roman Catholic Church as long as you both live and follow the faith guidelines and completed the necessary sacraments, you will have to pay non parishoner rates, I have seen them as low as $500 and as high as $1500 (prices within the last five years), not to mention the extras for music, servers, priest, parish preparer…, and whatever else you prefer.

My suggestion is this, if you are both still undecided about the church, maybe visit as many as possible on your next visit back home, or better yet, set a Holy Thursday bus tour where you visit seven random RC churches. Maybe it will be like buying a house when you both step into that special church together and look at each other like, “this is the one.” It is going to be your day together, pick the church that feels good to the both of you, so what if you may have no history in it, your wedding will set that history for years to come for you and your family!

Many prayers to your direction on this and God Bless your marriage!
-Hope
 
We often prepare couples for marriage who will be marrying ‘back home’. It’s really no big deal, just requires that paperwork move between dioceses. As long as your pastor has no problem with it, and I haven’t run into any that don’t understand the couple’s desire, it’s really no big deal unless you make it so.

Matter of fact, right now we’re preparing a couple who will be flying to another city to marry, not because it’s either of their hometown (in fact, the bride had all her sacraments of initiation in our parish) but because it’s the first city his mom & dad and other relatives from Holland will land in when they arrive in Canada. Not having to fly to our town would save everyone thousands of dollars.

You might consider marrying at one of the parishes where you were baptized.

One thing to keep in mind, your parish needs to know WHERE you will get married and who will marry you since the papers are sent to him. So, decide where and when, contact that parish and make the arrangements THEN meet with your pastor and tell him that, with his approval, this is where you want to get married and this is who will be witnessing your sacrament. If he says no you can easily cancel the date with the other parish.
 
My dh and I chose not to get married “back home.” It was tough b/c my grandparents could not attend but my dh’s daughter would not have been able to attend if we had. We did spend the extra money and get a video done for my grandparents so that they could have it. Overall many of my friends flew in and would have had to fly in regardless no matter where I had it.

God bless,
 
My wife and I followed both our families traditions and got married in her hometown (New Orleans). It was difficult for most of my family members to make it, as New Orleans is a good eight hour drive from where I grew up. We ended up having a party in my hometown about a month after the wedding to allow all of my family members to celebrate our marriage. Not ideal, but I think everyone was happy with it.

As far as the Church paperwork, we had no problems. We met with the priest in New Orleans who would marry us and he coordinated all our Pre-Cana training with a priest where we were living (in college) at the time. He also handled getting all the paperwork from the parish where I grew up and received all the sacraments. Looking back, we really didn’t have any problems!
 
In our diocese, any member of the diocese may marry in the Cathedral. Maybe your parents’ or in-laws’ membership would allow you to marry there if you are not comfortable with your old parishes.
 
DH and I married at his mother’s childhood parish, where many of his family still belong, though neither of us nor our parents were living in the area. The priest who baptized DH’s mom came out of retirement to officiate! It was lovely, and most of DH’s family and many from my side were able to attend.
 
We were married out of state in my DH’s hometown parish. Both of our families are down in that area and we have NO family where we live. His parents are still parishoners there. It just made more sense. We did the pre cana at our parish and they sent the paperwork out for us. DH’s uncle priest celebrated our wedding, the same as he did for all of DH’s siblings that got married before us. Of course it is a bonus that it was an absolutely beautiful country church that has our last name on some of the stained glass windows. 🙂

When our babies were born though we had them baptized at the parish where we are members though his family would have preferred us to travel back down there to have his uncle priest do the baptism like he did for everyone else (young enough anyway) in their huge family!

I’m a new Catholic so I don’t know about the traditions of things but we had no problems and noone said we had to be married in our parish up here.
 
If your girlfriend has always wanted a wedding w/ friends and family in attendance, have it in the midwest.

If a small wedding w/ just local friends is what you want, have it in Seattle.

Personally, I can not imagine a wedding w/o lots of friends and family.
 
I live in Virginia. My fiance lives in Philadelphia. My family lives in Seattle. His family lives in Wisconsin. So … compromise was just going to have to happen at some point!

Our original intent was to get married at my parents’ parish, in Seattle. However, the priest ended up not wanting to schedule anything because we weren’t doing marriage prep with him. That isn’t any particular rule, just a quirk (?!) of this particular priest.

So we settled on his parents’ parish, in Wisconsin. He is still registered there (he moved away from home recently), and we’ve got his mom there to help out with everything. But our marriage prep is being done in Virginia.

The agreement between the two priests, the one at his church and the one in Virginia doing our marriage prep, is that we will do marriage prep here and fulfill all the requirements of this diocese. (There are a lot!) Then all the paperwork will be sent to Wisconsin to prove to the priest who will marry us that we have been properly prepared.

It’s complicated, but it’s actually been working out fine. We just have to make sure to get all the documents together in our file a little early, so that they can send them to Wisconsin with plenty of time to spare. Other than that, it’s been pretty straightforward.
 
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