Outdoor wedding

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I wonder if all those who really want to get married outside want to have the reception out there too. Some people might think the outdoors isn’t good enough for a formal dinner but is for the ceremony
 
What is so great about the outdoors?

In most places, weather is extremely chancy. In the US especially, you can’t count on the weather being ‘good’ for being outdoors. Winter: Snow, sleet, freezing rain, blizzards, ice storms. Spring: Tornadoes, floods, or even garden variety pouring rain. Summer: Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, pouring rain, thunderstorms, hailstorms, haboobs, blistering heat/drought. Fall: Tornadoes, floods, freezes/freezing rain/snow, thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, wildfires. . .

Factor in that you usually have to make your arrangements months in advance. Imagine all the people in California who made their 'outdoor wedding arrangements for last week. Hey, late July in California, what could go wrong? (Wildfires, lightning strikes on a beach that wound up KILLING somebody).

In a church you have not only four walls and a roof to protect you, you have usually things like bathrooms. (So you had an outdoor wedding planned. It was hotter than you thought, and a lot of the guests got food poisoning, and the two port a potties you had for your ‘beach wedding’ didn’t cut it. . .)

The little kids in church will have some physical barriers to running around getting at best simply soaked, dirty, mud covered, sunburned etc while everybody is enjoying nature’s ‘glory’.

The elderly and infirm will have nice solid pews instead of flimsy folding chairs (so your elderly aunt won’t break a couple of fingers when her chair is toppled by the above running little kids). . .

You, the bride, dream about wafting toward your groom in ‘the great outdoors’. Reality: Your antiperspirant died, you reek. So does he. The sun and wind have turned yours and your bridesmaid’s hair into birdsnest. The best man, who is balding, has severe sunburn. Everybody’s clothes are sweatstained. Oh look, it’s going to start pouring rain! Now you’re drenched, and in running for cover, you fell into a large mud puddle. Oh, won’t your bridal album be the envy of all. . .

Outdoor weddings. . . Bah.
 
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marytk said:
I wonder if all those who really want to get married outside want to have the reception out there too. Some people might think the outdoors isn’t good enough for a formal dinner but is for the ceremony
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Very true
 
Tantum_ergo said:
What is so great about the outdoors?

In most places, weather is extremely chancy. In the US especially, you can’t count on the weather being ‘good’ for being outdoors. Winter: Snow, sleet, freezing rain, blizzards, ice storms. Spring: Tornadoes, floods, or even garden variety pouring rain. Summer: Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, pouring rain, thunderstorms, hailstorms, haboobs, blistering heat/drought. Fall: Tornadoes, floods, freezes/freezing rain/snow, thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, wildfires. . .

Factor in that you usually have to make your arrangements months in advance. Imagine all the people in California who made their 'outdoor wedding arrangements for last week. Hey, late July in California, what could go wrong? (Wildfires, lightning strikes on a beach that wound up KILLING somebody).

In a church you have not only four walls and a roof to protect you, you have usually things like bathrooms. (So you had an outdoor wedding planned. It was hotter than you thought, and a lot of the guests got food poisoning, and the two port a potties you had for your ‘beach wedding’ didn’t cut it. . .)

The little kids in church will have some physical barriers to running around getting at best simply soaked, dirty, mud covered, sunburned etc while everybody is enjoying nature’s ‘glory’.

The elderly and infirm will have nice solid pews instead of flimsy folding chairs (so your elderly aunt won’t break a couple of fingers when her chair is toppled by the above running little kids). . .

You, the bride, dream about wafting toward your groom in ‘the great outdoors’. Reality: Your antiperspirant died, you reek. So does he. The sun and wind have turned yours and your bridesmaid’s hair into birdsnest. The best man, who is balding, has severe sunburn. Everybody’s clothes are sweatstained. Oh look, it’s going to start pouring rain! Now you’re drenched, and in running for cover, you fell into a large mud puddle. Oh, won’t your bridal album be the envy of all. . .

Outdoor weddings. . . Bah.
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:rotfl: Love the image!

Yes, the wedding photos – that’s what it’s all about! 😉
 
As someone who came into the Church in my 20’s, I feel it’s such a privilege to be able to come into the presence of Christ, the Prisoner of Love, in the Eucharist. I’ve knelt before the tabernacle and imagined the scene of the movie The 10 Commandments where Moses comes in the presence of the burning bush. He takes off his sandals, falls on his face. When he comes down from the mountain his face is glowing with the glory of God.

We have the same here in the Eucharist, and it REAL.
Why don’t we appreciate that? If we did, we would never think the beach or a park ‘are so pretty’. If you knew what was in store for you the next few decades, wouldn’t you want God to be there, holding your hand along the way? Why would you in effect give him the snub by going away to a park where He wasn’t sitting, waiting for visitors? At the beginning of your married life? When the words would be spoken “Lord, bless this marriage”, it seems very hollow. Gosh, people love their dog so much, they look at how to incorporate him into their wedding! We treat our Lord so poorly, with so little love.

i168.photobucket.com/albums/u174/pennypie_2007/BurningBush_zps12f39510.jpg

If only we would make all our life decisions before the Blessed Sacrament!
Then it would seem perfectly natural to be married in His presence, to bring our children to be baptized, to make choices with God’s blessing.
 
i use to vacation and a beautiful hotel on the beach. It had beautiful sunsets and they did have sunset weddings that we could watch from the rooms. I didn’t see one get rain but I sure saw the wind whipping about that beautiful dress and I am sure blow sand into everyone’s face. I don’t think some brides really knew what they wanted as they topple through the sand wearing the long formal dress and train with four inch heels.
 
@ Tantum ergo - - I totally agree.
I have been playing weddings as part of a string quartet for almost 30 years. There are so many things that can go wrong outdoors. Bad weather, motorcycles roaring past your beautiful rose garden, drippy trees from rain hours ago, midday sunshine beating on your guests. Ladies ruining their nice shoes as they walk along dirt/muddy paths. Port-a-potties. Mosquitos and other bugs. I’ve seen too much.
Also, I often think that couples think that an outdoor wedding is going to be more economical. Usually it isn’t, because then you have to re-create the comforts of indoor conveniences, outside.
I’m all for a proper church wedding!! 🙂 I think that is usually more comfortable for the guests.
 
I attended an outdoor wedding once where the Bride fainted. Made for a very interesting ceremony to say the least.
 
chataranga said:
Thank you for your replies.
In my view all ground is holy ground though most people don’t treat it that way. Mostly it’s treated like a trash heap.
Code: 
 What better place than nature (weather permitting) is there for a man and woman to be in the presence of the supreme being to begin their new lives together? The eucharist seems portable enough to bring along for the ritual to be held anywhere. Nature is so much more beautiful than any building created by man. Having such a ritual outdoors may remind some people that the earth and all creation don't belong to us but we belong to it..

 On the ask and apologist thread that I read the links listed didn't seem to be helpful as to why a wedding couldn't be held out of doors only that the catholic church doesn't do it that way and also seemed to be more geared to whether or not someone could get married in a protestant church or other place or not.

 I will continue to enjoy nature as much as possible, whenever possible, knowing that the creator made all of it and would probably enjoy if we had more rituals of all types to honor that offering given to us. Thank you again for all the insight. Blessings to all of you and yours.
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The sacraments are usually to be celebrated in the church, which is consecrated and set aside for the liturgical life of the faithful.

*Can. 1118 §1. A marriage between Catholics or between a Catholic party and a non-Catholic baptized party is to be celebrated in a parish church. It can be celebrated in another church or oratory with the permission of the local ordinary or pastor.

§2. The local ordinary can permit a marriage to be celebrated in another suitable place.

§3. A marriage between a Catholic party and a non-baptized party can be celebrated in a church or in another suitable place.*

Do you notice that the rules are different if the marriage is between two Christians or between a Christian and a non-Christian? A marriage between two Christians is by that very fact a sacrament. Sacraments are normally celebrated in a church, a place set aside and consecrated for the assembly of the faithful for public liturgy and prayer, excepting when there are circumstances that overrule (such as not having a building large enough to contain the expected crowd or the parties celebrating the sacrament being too far from a church.)

As for caring for the earth, this encyclical by Pope St. John Paul II explains it well:
The Church recognises that care for the environment is part of care for the common good – the environment is one of the “common goods” which are the shared responsibility of the human race. We have to reject some of the easy assumptions of an earlier stage of industrialisation, such as that the human race, because God had given it dominion over the world, had an unlimited freedom to despoil the natural environment for its own purposes. Those who feel moved to a loving care for the internal balances of nature are responding to a deep religious instinct implanted within them by God. Their intuition tells them that the human race takes its place on this planet as a gift and privilege, and needs to cultivate what the new Catechism of the Catholic Church calls a “religious respect for the integrity of creation” Centesimus Annus - “The One Hundredth Year” (1996)
 
Tantum_ergo said:
What is so great about the outdoors?

In most places, weather is extremely chancy. In the US especially, you can’t count on the weather being ‘good’ for being outdoors. Winter: Snow, sleet, freezing rain, blizzards, ice storms. Spring: Tornadoes, floods, or even garden variety pouring rain. Summer: Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, pouring rain, thunderstorms, hailstorms, haboobs, blistering heat/drought. Fall: Tornadoes, floods, freezes/freezing rain/snow, thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, wildfires. . .

Factor in that you usually have to make your arrangements months in advance. Imagine all the people in California who made their 'outdoor wedding arrangements for last week. Hey, late July in California, what could go wrong? (Wildfires, lightning strikes on a beach that wound up KILLING somebody).

In a church you have not only four walls and a roof to protect you, you have usually things like bathrooms. (So you had an outdoor wedding planned. It was hotter than you thought, and a lot of the guests got food poisoning, and the two port a potties you had for your ‘beach wedding’ didn’t cut it. . .)

The little kids in church will have some physical barriers to running around getting at best simply soaked, dirty, mud covered, sunburned etc while everybody is enjoying nature’s ‘glory’.

The elderly and infirm will have nice solid pews instead of flimsy folding chairs (so your elderly aunt won’t break a couple of fingers when her chair is toppled by the above running little kids). . .

You, the bride, dream about wafting toward your groom in ‘the great outdoors’. Reality: Your antiperspirant died, you reek. So does he. The sun and wind have turned yours and your bridesmaid’s hair into birdsnest. The best man, who is balding, has severe sunburn. Everybody’s clothes are sweatstained. Oh look, it’s going to start pouring rain! Now you’re drenched, and in running for cover, you fell into a large mud puddle. Oh, won’t your bridal album be the envy of all. . .

Outdoor weddings. . . Bah.
Click to expand...
While I agree that it would seem to take a deep draught of the Hollywood KoolAid of unrealistic celluloid romanticism to think the great outdoors is an ideal site for a ceremony centered around a woman ritually costumed in a floor-length gown of white lace, let us clarify: You could just as well be making an argument in favor of a hotel over a beach or a gazebo in a garden.

This is a rational argument against outdoor ceremonies (without an Indoor Plan B, anyway), but it should not be taken as an argument in favor of a church over another place. That is a different question.
 
When I got married, my dh was LDS. We did not have a good experience with the Catholic Church and it resulted in me getting upset and walking out the door and telling my fiancé at the time that his uncle could marry us. We had a beautiful wedding on the beach with our friends and family. It had rained every day for several weeks before and when I awoke that morning, it was to beautiful blue sky and sunshine and water as still as glass. We had both the wedding and reception outside. It was a day to remember filled with so much joy.

Later I found a new parish and felt I may be able to talk to the priest there. When I called for an appointment, they actually let me talk to the priest no questions asked which did not happen the first time round. We renewed our vows in the church with about 6 close friends.

Although this was not the ideal approach, both experiences were beautiful and exactly what I needed at the time, each with so much meaning for both of us. In the first place we had hoped to incorporate both of our faith traditions in in our own way we were able to do that.
 
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