Question about marriage in the church

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Anne8

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My daughter just recently got engaged . We are Catholic and she told me she doesn’t want to get married in the church. What can I say or do to express to her how important it is.
 
Anne8 said:
What can I say or do to express to her how important it is.
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Probably nothing that she doesn’t know and hasn’t seriously considered already. There comes a time when you just have to step back and let them live their own lives on their own terms. Hard, I know. But that’s life.
 
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Does she know / care about sacramental grace? That’s the only thing I can think of to say…
 
If one of the parties is baptized Catholic then the marriage will be invalid and they will be committing fornication. This is serious business.
 
Anne8 said:
My daughter just recently got engaged . We are Catholic and she told me she doesn’t want to get married in the church. What can I say or do to express to her how important it is.
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Are you paying for the wedding? If so…

If her fiancée is not a Catholic, then she can request a dispensation to be married outside the Church. But if her fiancée is Catholic, then they need to get married in the Church.

NOW: if they are both Catholic & she’s going to be stubborn and refuse to get married in the Church - you can ask her to receive a convalidation.

But please work hard to convince her to get married in the Church or to get a dispensation if marrying a non-Catholic.

BTW - if it’s because she wants a beautiful location - you can always recommend some beautiful Catholic Churches - it doesn’t necessarily have to be your parish (though outside the parish could get expensive).

God Bless
 
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Anne8 said:
My daughter just recently got engaged . We are Catholic and she told me she doesn’t want to get married in the church. What can I say or do to express to her how important it is.
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Well Anne, if she’s reached marital age and she isn’t practicing, I don’t really know what you can say or do to impress the importance upon her that you didn’t say or do when she was growing up. The time for formation parent-to-child has passed. Now speak to her adult to adult.

If she has left the faith, you’ll need to start with the underlying issue not the marriage.

If she still goes to church, encourage her to talk to her pastor.
 
phil19034 said:
BTW - if it’s because she wants a beautiful location - you can always recommend some beautiful Catholic Churches - it doesn’t necessarily have to be your parish (though outside the parish could get expensive).
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On top of expensive, it’s not always a guarantee the parish will do it. We tried to get married outside my wife’s parish in the country and get married in town. The church in town is 10x bigger than her country church. They went back and forth on it before just telling us no and sending us back to her “home” church. We ended up having to get married about 20 min away and was a logistical nightmare.
 
Would she be willing to get dispensation from the Church to marry in a non-Catholic ceremony?
 
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phil19034 said:
BTW - if it’s because she wants a beautiful location - you can always recommend some beautiful Catholic Churches - it doesn’t necessarily have to be your parish (though outside the parish could get expensive)
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Not necessarily, my brother wanted to get married in our home town church. Priest said no because he wasn’t a registered member of his local church where he lived. Priest said he couldn’t marry someone without proof they were a practicing Catholic.
 
These individual pastoral issues do pop up. It is best for anyone considering marriage to make an appointment with their pastor, at the very least to visit their Diocese website to learn about their Bishop’s guidelines for marriage.
 
StRaphaelPray4Us said:
I’m sorry that happened to your brother…that’s a shame that the current pastor wouldn’t marry them, but he was probably going strictly by the diocesan rules.
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yes, it was a shame but I agreed with the pastor. The church is not to be used like a country club. If you aren’t going to practice your faith then you shouldn’t be participating in a sacrament. I do pray that he comes back to the church. He and his wife have had some bad experience with the church but truthfully, people want to do things their way instead of seeing that doing things God’s way is so much better.
 
Unless it is known if the daughter is a practicing Catholic, or not, it is impossible to give good advice here. If she no longer practices, the last thing a parent should do is try to get her to “fake it” in order to have a Catholic wedding. That is wrong on so many levels.
 
IDK – At first it was going to cost us a $1,800 “donation”. After we said sure I guess the priest said no and told us to go to her home parish…¯_(ツ)_/¯

He said we should have the wedding where she is registered, we wondered why they told us it would cost $1,800 in the beginning. It was whatever, we just needed to go find another church. It was pretty but easily 20-30 min from any hotel which made it tough for traveling family.
 
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