How were you married?

[alessandro]

Thanks be to God, I am now engaged to a beautiful, intelligent and charming young woman, Elizabeth. She shares many of my goals and aspirations (among which is to have lots of kids), and will make a great mom one day – hopefully starting in a couple of years!

My questions for you are four-fold:

(1) How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?

 

[turboEDvo]

These are all good questions…too bad I’m not married yet. However, when I get married, it will be in the church, and will be in a Mass (probably NO, because my family won’t know what’s going on otherwise ).

Eamon

 

[Brenda_V]

Okay,

I have your questions below - find my answers after your quesitons.

My questions for you are four-fold:

(1) How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

(Me) We dated for one year and were engaged for one year. Yes, we did pre-cana - we had to do an Engaged retreat as well as the “survey” and visits with the Priest. We approached the Church the required six months before our wedding.

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

(Me) We were married in a Sacramental ceremony, no Mass as my husband is not Cathollic nor is his family. We had the ceremony in my home Parish. I will tell you the story in a separate post.

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

(Me) I did it by having a Priest preside and liturgical music and much prayer and daily Mass attendance several months prior to my Wedding.

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?

(Me) It has strengthened - being married to a man who started out as an agnostic and was just coming back to Christianity has helped me in staying the course of continuously learning about my beautiful Catholic Faith.

I will come back later to tell you the story of my Wedding, have to go run errands and get back to clean house it is my youngests 19th Birthday today!

Brenda V.

 

[Kay_Cee]

alessandro:

Thanks be to God, I am now engaged to a beautiful, intelligent and charming young woman, Elizabeth. She shares many of my goals and aspirations (among which is to have lots of kids), and will make a great mom one day – hopefully starting in a couple of years!

My questions for you are four-fold:

(1) How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?

My responses:

1. We dated exactly two years and five months (to the day!) before we married. We did the pre-cana, which I highly recommend. If you’re not familiar with it, you’re given questions about a topic (like sex, in-laws, career, children). You and your fiancee separate to answer the questions, then get together to compare answers. It gives you a wonderful idea about what both of you expect from the marriage. We did our pre-cana during Engagement Encounter.
2. We are both practicing Catholics and were married by a priest in the Cathedral. We had the Mass–get all the blessings you can as you start your life together!
3. We added a vow that we would help each other grow in our Catholic faith.
4. Absolutely! Our faith has grown so much stronger, and what a difference it makes, especially when it comes to raising kids. I hear others talk about how much “work” marriage is, and to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. Our marriage works all by itself (or, rather, I should say God makes it work!) We will be married 16 years this month, and if I counted on my fingers all the heated arguments we’ve had, I would have fingers left over.

Congratulations to you and Elizabeth! May God bless you as you begin a life together.

 

[Arlene]

We became engaged after only 10 weeks, but were engaged a year and a half before getting married. We were married in the Catholic Church with a Mass. We had to take classes prior. As I remember it was once a week for 4 weeks. It was that or a weekend, but with both of us working we couldn’t do that.

We got married in Santa Barbara where we were both going to school. Both sides of the family had to travel to get there. My family was scattered and would have had to travel either way. Why we didn’t have the wedding in his home town is a story for a different day.

At the time we were both practicing Catholics, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way than go get married with a Mass. We have been married for 23 years. Sadly, my husband has fallen away from the Church. I am still strongly Catholic and raising my children that way.

 

[BlestOne]

alessandro:

Thanks be to God, I am now engaged to a beautiful, intelligent and charming young woman, Elizabeth. She shares many of my goals and aspirations (among which is to have lots of kids), and will make a great mom one day – hopefully starting in a couple of years!

My questions for you are four-fold:

alessandro:

(1) How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

OK I am here to tell you the tragic truth…I eloped. (ex) We dated 6 months before we became engaged, I was 21 and he was 26. We did not have a church wedding, we did not do pre-cana, we did not last!!! Marriage lasted 13 very long lonely torturous years and ended in divorce. Learn from my mistakes please!!! (Soon to be husband)This time around I looked for a very faithful, God loving man that would be the head of my household. We have been dating for 6 years and both got annulments from our first marriages. He did have to go through some counselling so that we could get married…I would have gone if he had wanted me to as well.

alessandro:

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

Eloped, married by a justice of the peace in another state than we were residing in…seemed romantic at the time…boy was I stupid!!! Doing it over again now with a very good Catholic man…because I found out that sharing very core beliefs was not only important but necessary to a marriages survival. This time I am having a Catholic mass/sacramental marriage in our home parish, we are going away for a 1 week honeymoon because I have 3 teenagers and he has a daughter (10 yo) that we truly need to get away from to start our marriage out. Where is not important to us…we have dated for 6 years and have abstained from sexual relations so that we could offer ourselves fully to each other on our wedding night…no kids near!!!

alessandro:

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

AMEN!!! This is the key!!! Trust me…my ex decided soon after we were married to “look” into this new age stuff. I stayed Catholic but he decided that he was a Pagan high priest… it really tore us apart!!! When I started dating again I promised myself and God that this time I would do it his way… There were 3 things that were very important to me in a spouse:

1. He would have to be Catholic since this is such a BIG part of who I am how could I marry a non Catholic who wouldn’t be able to share this big part of who I am.
2. He would have to be willing to engage in an active prayer life with me…and at times the kids too. I decided that if I ever remarried I wanted the best chance for success and couples that pray together and go to church together have a 1% divorce rate as opposed to 50% for the typical marriage.
3. He would have to have similiar moral values as I have and have raised my children with. That way there would be no problems with fundamental beliefs about what marriage means.

alessandro:

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?

Well…after my ex dropped the bombshell about his “new” religion…I admit, I tried to be accomodating at first and actually hear him out when he tried to tell me about it. I felt like I was betraying everything I believed in. I never want to compromise my immortal soul or my children’s like that again!!! My soon to be husband and I have talked extensively about how we expect our faith life to be. I truly believe this is something you should talk about before you say I Do!!! We want more than anything to help each other grow in faith and love for each other and God. Since this is so important to us and we actually set up a game plan for the things we want to do to help our faith like teaching Sunday school and helping with RCIA for him and choir and lectoring for me I think we have a good shot at accomplishing a growth pattern that will take us far in learning about our faith.

 

[Pumpkin]

1. How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it? We were engaged for a year. We did our Pre-Cana as the Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend. It was great the men and women were in dorms (separated of course) and for a weekend had a retreat and we went through the process of PreCana. We had time together as a group, in small groups and individually for reflection. We kept a journal for the entire weekend and at the end has time to share our journals with our other half. We had Mass each day and on the final day pronounced our promises to each other. We were older when we got married and this type of Pre-Cana is offered because the Pre-Cana at our parish focuses on not only the spiritual but things like balancing a checkbook etc… We did not need the “get to know you” interaction that our parish offered since we both have had our own careers for years and lived separate adult lives before we met. Therefore, our Priest encouraged us to go to the Catholic Engaged Encounter. We loved it, it gave us the opportunity to get away from work and the world to focus on our spiritual growth together for a whole weekend.
   (2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories. My church, we are both from the same town. My parish was bigger and could hold both of our families.
   (3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process? The parish we were married in has strict rules regarding making and keeping the focus of the wedding the sacrament. Only liturgical music is allowed, no unity candle, no poems, or other non-liturgical aspects of a wedding are aloud… We were very happy with everything.
   (4) How has your Faith changed after being married?

We have been married for a little over a year and we have grown stronger in our faith. In our dating, engagement and marriage we have the strength of two devout Catholics providing support of our Faith for each other. It is the kind of completion, that I knew by the example of my family and he saw in his, as we were growing up. What amazed us most is that we had close to 200 people at our wedding and about 99.9% of them were professing their faith, singing the songs together because we have such a strongly Catholic family. That was pretty cool.

Bless you both and my God be with your in your marriage.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

We were engaged for about a year. We married each other in the Roman Rite with a Communion Service Outside of Mass. The presiding priest seemed to think it would take too long to add in the consecration, why I don’t know, because just about everything else that is a part of Mass was in there. My children (now our children, as he legally adopted them) wrote and read the Petitions. None of it was not in Latin, thank you very much (If you prefer Latin, that’s just fine and dandy). However, part of the music was a taped version of a Greek anitphon (all the music was taped, and sacred music only).

I don’t think anybody can get away from Pre-Cana or similar, if it’s to be a Catholic wedding. It’s usually a diocese requirement.

Our faith has only gotten stronger. Is every day a picnic in the park? No. But that’s why we’re married, so we can weather it together. We’ve been together almost 17 years, so I don’t think he’s going anyplace. We are both better people for having married each other.

Instead of asking all of us- not that I mind- why don’t you ask the woman you’re about to marry? Trust me on this. I am sure your bride has a lot of good ideas. My best to you and your Elizabeth (lovely name, many lovely saints named Elizabeth).

 

[alessandro]

Great stories, thanks! Keep 'em coming…

 

[alessandro]

Thanks again to everyone for providing these terrific stories!

I guess I should mention a little about what we’ve been thinking about… We are still in the planning stages, as the marriage is 1-1.5 years away (we haven’t decided on the date yet).

The main thing I care about is the Mass. My dream is to have a beautiful Tridentine High Mass, with full choir and organ. As my fiancée wants to have the Mass at her parish (where she was baptized, received first communion and was confirmed), I’m not sure if this is even possible – It is a beautiful church, but unfortunately went through the “Renovation Manipulation” over the last 30 years. (This is where bishops thought they were ‘modernizing’ their churches, when in fact they were defacing them, ripping out kneelers, communion rails, getting rid of altars and having ‘tables’, and moving the tabernacle to a side room.)

Thankfully, the tabernacle is restored to its proper place in the center of the altarpiece, but there is only a table, not a true altar, so I don’t think any priest could do a traditional mass there. Plus, it’d be a real surprise if any priest in that parish would even know how to do it. After all, if they’d allow the church to be defaced, then they probably gave up on that Mass a long time ago.

Perhaps my priest would be willing to be the celebrant…

Sigh… God help us in these difficult times… Why is it so hard to have the Mass that we, and God’s Church, so longingly desire?

Anyway, I would print beautiful misalettes for everyone with the Latin of the Mass on one side and the translation on the other.

[In our wedding, *language is a big issue: I’m Italian, Elizabeth is from Galicia, in Spain. So we would need translations into Italian, Catalán (official Spanish), Gallego (the Galician Spanish dialect), and English. The homily would be spoken in English, presumably, since the priest is English. I love how the the Tridentine Mass overcomes language boundaries, don’t you? I mean, Latin is Latin, and the Mass is in Latin, and everyone recognizes the same parts of the Mass and understands the same prayers. It really doesn’t matter what language they speak.]

As for pre-cana, yes we are planning to do it over the course of a few months, probably with my spiritual director, or perhaps at her family parish. I like the idea of an Engaged Encounter retreat weekend. Perhaps we can research that option, too.

I am planning a big emphasis on our shared Faith. First, by my being a stickler for a beautiful Mass, I am setting forth the standard that will carry forth into our marriage: God comes first; and this marriage is truly a Sacrament that I will fight to honor and defend, forever. I hope the beauty of the traditional Mass (if God wills that I’m able to arrange it!) and the sublime music will transcend all boundaries and remind people of the rich heritage of their faith. I also want to say grace before eating dinner – it seems to have be forgotten in many of the weddings that I’ve gone to.

As for how our Faith will change after being married… only time will tell. I pray that we may support each other and become stronger in the Faith.

 

[mari319]

First off: CONGRATULATIONS! :dancing: Enoy your engagement and the whole “getting married” process. Now on to the questions:

1. We were engaged “officially” for 11 months, but we knew we were going to get married for a few months before he actually proposed. I considered myself engaged well before then. We had to do pre-Cana, but even if you don’t I’d suggest it. It was a good experience. Much of what was discussed, my dh and I had already covered because we were both older than average and had definite ideas of how things should be. However, it forces some subjects you might otherwise skip because they aren’t always “comfortable.”
2. We had a Catholic wedding at the church, but without the sacrament of Eucharist because I was still in RCIA so I couldn’t take it anyway. Besides that, my family and most of the guests wouldn’t have been able to participate either as non-Catholics.
3. That was pretty much taken care of in the sacrament.
4. My faith has definitely gotten deeper and stronger. We’ve been married for almost 2 1/2 years and have gone through a lot already. It has brought us both closer to God. Besides that, my dh is a very strong Catholic and he keeps me straight.

 

[Leslee68]

I was married in a Methodist Church. My husband was a baptised catholic but has not been into a church since he was 7 when his mum had died. I was brought up in the Salvation Army. My father-in-law refused to come to the wedding if we married in the Salvation Army, so my dad refused to come if we married in the Catholic Church hence the Methodist Church wedding. Three years after that wedding I became a Catholic and we had our marriage convalidated, a year later I had our first child followed closely by our second. When I complained about how hard it was taking two babies to church my husband started to come to Mass with me. We renewed our vows on our 25th anniversary and celebrate 29 year at the end of the month.

 

[amcalabrese]

We had more than ceremony, less than a Mass. My wife is Lutheran, so I did not want to have a situation where she could not join in Communion, or where my family and friends took Communion, but her family and friends sat down. Additionally, she has some liberal Protestants in her family, who would take Copmmunion anyway (and I did not want to be in the position of “policing” Communion).

So we had the full “Liturgy of the Word” followed by the ceremony then the final blessings.

 

[acadian]

1. How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

We dated for about 8 years. Husband had been married previously and had a young son. He submitted the paperwork for his annulment early on. But issues with money and the ex-wife kept us from rushing into marriage. I think witnessing the effect of his ex-wife’s remarriage on their son also made us take our time.

My husband did NOT want to do pre-cana, and without us even bringing up the topic with our priest, he waived that requirement for us. He said we were “old enough to know what we were getting into”. My 3 sibs and my husband’s sister all went through pre-cana, and none of them had much good to say about it. They felt like it was mostly for the 18 -20 year old crowd who’d never discussed some issues.

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

We were married in a church ceremony at the parish where I was a member. It was not a big, beautiful church. It was the temporary church before the masterpiece was built, but it was MY parish home. And the priest was one who is near and dear to my heart. Nothing exotic, but that is not my personality.

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

Fortunatly my faith has grown a little since our wedding. We were married in the church, and that was about the extent of that.

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?

My faith has had its ups and downs since we got married. When I was pregnant and then later when I had 2 small children at home, it was very easy to skip Mass even though I’d been a weekly attendee all my life. Fortunately God keeps knocking, and if we open the door to our hearts even a little bit, He slips right in. As my children have gotten older, I’ve learned from them (a little sad that after I attended Catholic school for 9 years, that I can learn stuff my my Kindergartener and 1st grader’s religion books, but true). I’ve rediscovered Confession, and while I don’t go nearly often enough, I know it is a gift. Right now, I’m at a point where I can go to Daily Mass a few times a week, and that is also a gift. My faith has always been with me. I just have a lot to learn and lots of room to improve in how I practice it.

 

[NFPfamily]

1. How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

**We were engaged for eight months and did go through pre-cana. We also attended an engaged encounter weekend and I would highly recommend going to one if it is offered. It was so wonderful just to get away with each other and focus on our future together. **

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

**We were married with a beautiful traditional Catholic mass and two priests concelebrating. **

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

We took the advice of our priest to focus on the marriage, not the wedding. We were committed to recognizing the sacrament that we were receiving, not focusing on the glitz of the wedding details (although we managed to pull of a pretty classy wedding, too!). We also decided through pre-cana that we were going to build our marriage favorable to the Church’s teaching, including practicing NFP. Most of all, we were aware that we were entering into this marriage with God; that it wasn’t just the two of us wanting to spend our lives together. Realizing that the ultimate purpose of marriage is to try to help your spouse attain heaven kind of puts things into perspective!

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?
Our faith has grown leaps and bounds, but that’s because we’ve put work into it. We are constantly trying to challenge ourselves to know more and to grow closer to God, and that journey will never end on this earth. We are always looking for ways to strengthen our faith, or to help us to learn different aspects of it.

 

[SeekerJen]

Congratulations and God bless! What an exciting and crazy time in your lives. Here are my answers.

(1) How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it?

We were engaged for 11 months. We met several times with our pastor and participated in two pre-cana type programs through the Archdiocese. One was a one-shot deal giving an overview of the Church’s teachings on conjugal love and family planning, the other was a two-night program covering everything else. The second one was especially helpful- it encouraged us to talk about things that we otherwise might not have thought to bring up.

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories.

We were married in my parish’s church by the pastor. Since my husband is not Catholic (although he is a baptized Christian, which made the dispensation very easy to obtain), we had a Nuptial service rather than a Mass. It was the full Liturgy of the Word plus vows and various blessings and prayers.

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process?

**Being married in the Catholic Church was non-negotiable. My husband knew from the get-go that I was not going to convert for him or skip out on the sacrament to be married in his hometown or on a beach somewhere. We also spent a lot of time discussing beliefs and how we would raise children with faith and religious background (something we both feel is of supreme importance). He pleasantly suprised both me and our pastor by blurting out in a meeting that he had no problem if the kids were raised completely as Catholics. **

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married?
It has grown deeper. I am extremely fortunate to have a spouse who fully respects my faith and religious practices, even if he does not fully understand or share them. We also have friendly debates over various points of faith which keeps me on my toes, apologetically speaking.

 

[genealogist]

(1) How long were you engaged? Did you do pre-cana? If so, how long did you do it? We were engaged 364 days. We had a FOCUSS(sp) review and then went over it with the lay marriage counselor at our university parish in six sessions. We met with Fr. once and my wife’s minister once.

(2) How were you married? What kind of ceremony-- civil ceremony, church ceremony, church ceremony with mass? Where did you do it – in the bride’s home town, an exotic beach, Europe? I’d enjoy hearing lots of stories. We were married in our univeroty’s Catholic church right on campus. I did not want the invitation to have a Protestant church’s name as the place we were married. As my finacee was a constituent and not a member of her congregation I did not think I was being too pushy. The university church meant something to her too. We have celebrated all three childrens’ baptisms there as well. We did have a nuptial Mass and I did not receive Communion on the advice of a very wise orthodox Jesuit. In retrospect I would have had mass said for my late dad earlier in the day and opted for the service. Her minister did attend and offer prayers and blessings.

(3) How did you ensure that your Faith was part-and-parcel of the the wedding process? Picked appropriate hymns and readings.

(4) How has your Faith changed after being married? I think I am more knowledgeable but need to be a better example. I have turned the Mrs. off greatly as being too EWTN and not enough go with the flow that she met at our college. I would not recommend marrying a non-Catholic.

 

[Fashina86]

turboEDvo:

These are all good questions…too bad I’m not married yet. However, when I get married, it will be in the church, and will be in a Mass (probably NO, because my family won’t know what’s going on otherwise ).

Eamon

(what do you mean by NO?) we could have a Latin one! (but wait, dad might not come and my siblings may murder me!)

 

[turboEDvo]

(what do you mean by NO?) we could have a Latin one! (but wait, dad might not come and my siblings may murder me!)

That’s why I say it will be NO and not TLM. My family would be confused, and your family (except your mom) would be pissed. So, I say we head confusion and anger off at the pass and just go with a Mass said in English.

Eamon

 

[kage_ar]

Very Christian, but not Catholic back then…We were married before conversion to the RCC, in this goregous place:

beautifulbellavista.com/chapel.htm

My dad, a minister, officiated. After the ceremony, we went to my parent’s home for cake and punch.

We were “engaged” for 6 months, but had known each other for 4 years.

Changing faith - well, we are now Catholic!