Perhaps they are trying to be too accomodating of their guests. There are advantages in having it be somebody’s homebase so they know the town. You know where to run to buy things when some vendor botches something or what doc to hit up if the bride gets ill and people can run home if needed.
I wasn’t Catholic at the time, but had I been, we’d have had a problem.
My “home” church was four and a half hours from the nearest international airport in a town with no hotels. Fifteen people from the UK flew in for our wedding. The groom was living in Saudi Arabia, I was living in Oklahoma, stationed there in a rather tiny town (three and a half hours from the nearest major airport) with the USAF. My last day on active duty (I was on terminal leave for the month prior to the wedding) was one day after our wedding, so having it in Oklahoma (barring any of the other logistical questions) wasn’t really an option (besides, there was nowhere in the town for them to even stay back then). The UMC isn’t the Catholic Church, but we still had premarriage stuff to do and this was the era prior to widespread use of the internet for that sort of thing. I was insistent I get married in a church. Civil ceremonies just didn’t cut it for me.
My home preacher worked with the UMC head offices in NC, and after we paid the church’s fee (only fair in my book) and he worked with the preacher there, we were married in a UMC in Raleigh, NC.
My sister’s wedding gift to us (she was very pregnant at the time, and lived in Raleigh, NC) was she rented a van and drove the British delegation around.
Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for needing help. I was told by the preacher who married us that our request was perfectly fair (though likely the most interesting one of his career to that point!), and he’d been happy he’d been able to assist.
I’m sure there are Catholics who find themselves in equally weird situations. Having been military most of my life in some capacity, either as an active duty member or a dependent kid, I don’t even give that sort of thing a second thought any more. You just sort of “adapt and overcome” and work out the best solution. It’s not always being selfish or trying to be overly accommodating.
(Edited because someone is going to wonder…I have a break in service between my enlisted time and my commissioned time. Medical officers can commission at an older age, and my active duty time “reduced” my chronological age by five years as I was five years closer to retirement eligibility when I commissioned.)
