Marrying a Catholic Girl

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engaged12345

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Hello everyone,

I just got engaged to my girlfriend who is Catholic. I was baptized Catholic, however I was never confirmed. My dad is Catholic, but my mom is Baptist. I didn’t really go to Catholic church as a kid because we went to my mom’s church. As I got older, my girlfriends have always been Catholic so I started going to Catholic church with them since I knew I was baptized Catholic.

We haven’t talked to a priest yet about the marriage so I was hoping I could get everything I can straightened out before doing so. Neither of us are members of the church we plan to get married in. She is working on becoming a member soon. So I’ve been wondering what the church needs from me/us for us to have a Catholic wedding.

Is me not being confirmed going to be a problem?
My parents seem to have misplaced my baptism documentation, do I need that? The church where I was baptized should have a copy right? I probably haven’t been back to this church since the baptism (30 years ago).
What do I do if for some reason I am unable to get a copy?

Any (name removed by moderator)ut would be appreciated. Thank you
 
engaged12345 said:
Hello everyone,

I just got engaged to my girlfriend who is Catholic. I was baptized Catholic, however I was never confirmed. My dad is Catholic, but my mom is Baptist. I didn’t really go to Catholic church as a kid because we went to my mom’s church. As I got older, my girlfriends have always been Catholic so I started going to Catholic church with them since I knew I was baptized Catholic.

We haven’t talked to a priest yet about the marriage so I was hoping I could get everything I can straightened out before doing so. Neither of us are members of the church we plan to get married in. She is working on becoming a member soon. So I’ve been wondering what the church needs from me/us for us to have a Catholic wedding.

Is me not being confirmed going to be a problem?
My parents seem to have misplaced my baptism documentation, do I need that? The church where I was baptized should have a copy right? I probably haven’t been back to this church since the baptism (30 years ago).
What do I do if for some reason I am unable to get a copy?

Any (name removed by moderator)ut would be appreciated. Thank you
Click to expand...
For the question about confirmation you will probably need to speak with your priest about what the parish rules and processes are. Here is what the CA Apologists have to say about it.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=94270

You will need a baptism certificate, however, even if your parents had your original one the Church needs a recent baptismal certificate, from within the past six months so you would need to contact the parish you were baptized in anyway. I believe this is to help make sure you have not been married before. When you marry in the Church I believe they make a note of this on the back of your official baptismal records stored at the place you were baptized.

If it is, for some reason, impossible to get a record of your baptism I believe you can usually work around it by getting people who witnessed your baptism to sign an affidavit that you were, in fact, baptized. At any rate, when I was getting married I had a hard time tracking down which Church I was baptized at and this is what my priest told me we would do if we couldn’t track it down.

But really, I think the most important thing is to just take that plunge, go talk to your priest about it, he’ll be able to answer your questions much better than any of us here online, and it will get you one step closer to your actual wedding day 🙂 God Bless and Congratulations!!
 
My husband was also baptized but not confirmed. He did have to get his baptismal certificate from the church he was baptized at, but was not required to be confirmed in order to get married.

You just need to contact the church and get the process started, and the priest or the office staff will be able to answer other questions you have about the process.
 
You’ll both want to make sure of those records are handy, because my sense is you’ll be needing them. 😃

As far as your particular situation goes, that will all become clearer once you meet with the priest.
 
Welcome! 👋

I agree with what everyone else has been saying. All parishes keep sacramental records. You just need to give your current parish (or soon-to-be parish) the name and city of where you were baptized, and they will track it down. As has been said, they would need to do this anyway even if you had a copy from 30 years ago as they need a recent copy.

I do highly recommend Confirmation, though. 👍 It’s an underrated sacrament. 😛

God bless you as you prepare for marriage!
 
Yes you need your baptismal record and all you need to do is contact the church give them your name, your parent’s names and an estimate of time. Churches have records and they do a pretty good finding them. When I was going to get married I was quite worries about my church records as I don’t have them, they are from a third world country (and over thirty years), I had no idea when I was baptized and we weren’t sure about which names were in my baptism certificate (my baptism was a long story because I was born out of wedlock so getting me baptized was not easy due to this we weren’t sure if my certificate had my grandparent’s names or what) so I thought no one is going to find that. I called the church gave them a range of time and my name and my godparent’s name and they found it so quickly I was impressed. If I got my certificate from a thirld world country you shouldn’t have any problems in the US.

As to confirmation you need to talk to the priest to see what he recommends.
 
Thank you everyone for the information! I will take the advice and just wait until our talk with the priest and in the meantime, look up the church where I was baptized. Hopefully it is still there.
 
engaged12345 said:
Hello everyone,

I just got engaged to my girlfriend who is Catholic. I was baptized Catholic, however I was never confirmed. My dad is Catholic, but my mom is Baptist. I didn’t really go to Catholic church as a kid because we went to my mom’s church. As I got older, my girlfriends have always been Catholic so I started going to Catholic church with them since I knew I was baptized Catholic.

We haven’t talked to a priest yet about the marriage so I was hoping I could get everything I can straightened out before doing so. Neither of us are members of the church we plan to get married in. She is working on becoming a member soon. So I’ve been wondering what the church needs from me/us for us to have a Catholic wedding.

Is me not being confirmed going to be a problem?
My parents seem to have misplaced my baptism documentation, do I need that? The church where I was baptized should have a copy right? I probably haven’t been back to this church since the baptism (30 years ago).
What do I do if for some reason I am unable to get a copy?

Any (name removed by moderator)ut would be appreciated. Thank you
Click to expand...
Only a priest can really answer you’re question I would think.
 
engaged12345 said:
Thank you everyone for the information! I will take the advice and just wait until our talk with the priest and in the meantime, look up the church where I was baptized. Hopefully it is still there.
Click to expand...
If it’s not you might contact the diocese of that parish, indicate that you were baptized there and wish to marry, and ask what parish “absorbed” (so to speak) those parishioners and the parish records. When a parish closes down, the records are sent to another parish. The new parish should have the records that you need.

As far as Confirmation goes, it’s generally advisable that a person be confirmed before getting married. That said, you might speak to your local priest, explain the situation, and ask if he can give you private instruction regarding the Sacrament of Confirmation. You could then be confirmed either by the bishop or the priest at some point in the future - likely during the annual Confirmation of young people or during Easter Vigil.
 
His_helpmeet said:
If it’s not you might contact the diocese of that parish, indicate that you were baptized there and wish to marry, and ask what parish “absorbed” (so to speak) those parishioners and the parish records. When a parish closes down, the records are sent to another parish. The new parish should have the records that you need.

As far as Confirmation goes, it’s generally advisable that a person be confirmed before getting married. That said, you might speak to your local priest, explain the situation, and ask if he can give you private instruction regarding the Sacrament of Confirmation. You could then be confirmed either by the bishop or the priest at some point in the future - likely during the annual Confirmation of young people or during Easter Vigil.
Click to expand...
This^^. We just completed a class of adults who lacked Confirmation for whatever reason. Several of them wanted to marry in the Church, and Father said they should be confirmed first.
They had about 6 sessions, and they became great friends.
 
We almost needed to get a dispensation for marriage because my husband was not baptized within the Catholic Church.
I wasn’t confirmed but my baptismal certificate was easy to obtain. I just needed to give the priest the Church where I was baptized and received communion.

Hubby and I went through RCIA so he got all of his sacraments needed at the Easter vigil…which was only weeks away. He gave the priest all of his paperwork at the rehearsal 😃

I wasn’t confirmed for the wedding because that ceremony was scheduled 2 days after the wedding.
 
Talk to your priest. Per the Code of Canon Law:
Can. 1065 §1. Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of confirmation are to receive it before they are admitted to marriage if it can be done without grave inconvenience.
Click to expand...
-ACEGC
 
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