"Sacred Heart" wedding - Catholic marriage ceremony

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Greetings, all.

I am working on my first “serious” book, a novel which will be of the “cozy mystery” genre (similar to “Murder, She Wrote” with Jessica Fletcher as author/detective).

My main character is not a Catholic, but a close friend and co-worker is. I would like to include a few descriptive sentences about her friend’s wedding, which I will treat respectfully and in a wholesome manner. (In fact, the entire book will be wholesome. 🙂 ) I looked around the forums (using the search utility) and even GOOGLED for it, but I cannot find any details about a Sacred Heart wedding (i.e., red and white as colors, often held in winter, etc.).

If anyone can point me in the right direction, or if any of you celebrated personally with a Sacred Heart wedding, I would very much appreciate any details you can offer.

Thank you for your time.

Blessings to all.
 
WiccanWoman said:
Greetings, all.

I am working on my first “serious” book, a novel which will be of the “cozy mystery” genre (similar to “Murder, She Wrote” with Jessica Fletcher as author/detective).

My main character is not a Catholic, but a close friend and co-worker is. I would like to include a few descriptive sentences about her friend’s wedding, which I will treat respectfully and in a wholesome manner. (In fact, the entire book will be wholesome. 🙂 ) I looked around the forums (using the search utility) and even GOOGLED for it, but I cannot find any details about a Sacred Heart wedding (i.e., red and white as colors, often held in winter, etc.).

If anyone can point me in the right direction, or if any of you celebrated personally with a Sacred Heart wedding, I would very much appreciate any details you can offer.

Thank you for your time.

Blessings to all.
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I have never heard of this, but I have heard of newly engaged couples doing the consecration to Jesus thru Mary devotion.

Maybe this will help:

newearthoflovepeaceandjoy.com/howtodotheTotalConsecration.html
 
You have likely been unable to find anything about a ‘Sacred Heart wedding’ because there is no such thing.
 
1ke said:
You have likely been unable to find anything about a ‘Sacred Heart wedding’ because there is no such thing.
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:eek: Really? That’s funny… I attended one long ago, which is why I ask. I have been out of touch with the couple for some time, though.

Held in church… red and white flowers (bouquets and altar pieces)… red trim on her veil… red shoes beneath the hem of her white gown… there was a special devotional prayer said… and there are specific invitations on-line for such a wedding…

topdownloadables.com/2013/christian-wedding-invitation-templates/

". . . Catholic couples sometimes have a “Sacred Heart” wedding with red and white as the color scheme. Our niece chose this theme. Her bridesmaids wore white dresses with red sashes and they carried red roses. Her invitations were white with red borders. . . "

Yeah, I guess there is no such thing… :rolleyes:
 
WiccanWoman said:
:eek: Really? That’s funny… I attended one long ago, which is why I ask. I have been out of touch with the couple for some time, though.

Held in church… red and white flowers (bouquets and altar pieces)… red trim on her veil… red shoes beneath the hem of her white gown… there was a special devotional prayer said… and there are specific invitations on-line for such a wedding…

topdownloadables.com/2013/christian-wedding-invitation-templates/

". . . Catholic couples sometimes have a “Sacred Heart” wedding with red and white as the color scheme. Our niece chose this theme. Her bridesmaids wore white dresses with red sashes and they carried red roses. Her invitations were white with red borders. . . "

Yeah, I guess there is no such thing… :rolleyes:
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It sounds more like some kind of color scheme description than anything specifically Catholic. I’ve never heard of such a thing either, along with the other Catholic posters who said the same thing. The fact that Google came up with nothing either should tell you that whatever it is, it’s probably not something inherently Catholic- probably just a cultural thing someone made up that never really caught on. If it’s something that no one has a clue about, maybe it would be better to not bother including it in your novel, since no one would be able to identify with it.

If you have any questions about Catholic weddings, I am sure plenty of posters would be willing to provide details, but a “Sacred Heart” wedding just doesn’t seem to be something anyone has heard of.

Best of luck with your novel! 🙂
 
WiccanWoman said:
:eek: Really? That’s funny…
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Yes, really.
WiccanWoman said:
I attended one long ago, which is why I ask.
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You may have attended a wedding that included red and white as the color theme. You did not attend a Sacred Heart wedding, because there is no such Rite of Marrige.
WiccanWoman said:
Held in church… red and white flowers (bouquets and altar pieces)… red trim on her veil… red shoes beneath the hem of her white gown…
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All choices a bride can make, but still not a Sacred Heart wedding. If she called it that, she made it up.
WiccanWoman said:
there was a special devotional prayer said…
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It is possible that in a part of the Mass that allows for optioinal prayers, the priest did use a prayer including something about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There is a consecration to the Sacred Heart. Perhaps he included this.
WiccanWoman said:
and there are specific invitations on-line for such a wedding…
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No there is made up stuff on a website from someone who is not a Catholic.
WiccanWoman said:
Yeah, I guess there is no such thing… :rolleyes:
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Fine, come to this site and ask for help, get answers you do not like, and put in a roll your eyes emoticon for good measure.

Very polite.

Go ahead and put a Sacred Heart wedding in your book if you like. Don’t expect Catholics to know what it is or take it seriously.

I would really suggest you not.
 
it sounds like a cutesy name to describe optional choices made for a wedding. I really have not heard of it either- were they of an ethnic group in particular, where this might be a Lithuanian thing, or Spanish thing, etc?
 
Never heard of it. If you reference this in your book, I don’t think anyone will know what you are talking about. Why don’t you include specifically Catholic wedding traditions? The colors and invitations really don’t matter very much and they don’t make a wedding “Cathoic”. Why don’t you include something like a Marian devotion, where the couple offer flowers at the Marian altar and often to their own mothers as well?
 
My parents got married (and renewed their vows) in Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark. Does that count? 😉
 
So this is my first posting, I just registered so that I could read this forum.

My mom and I have talked about the day that I get married about having a Sacred Heart Wedding.

Basically it is held in the winter, with red and white, it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus dressed in white and you see his heart on the statue (according to my mom).

I plan on getting married by having a Sacred Heart Wedding, if that is what it is called, I always thought it was. I should call my great aunt (nun of Carmelite of the Word) and ask her, if I do I’ll try to remember to respond back on here.
 
mandapanda87 said:
So this is my first posting, I just registered so that I could read this forum.

My mom and I have talked about the day that I get married about having a Sacred Heart Wedding.

Basically it is held in the winter, with red and white, it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus dressed in white and you see his heart on the statue (according to my mom).

I plan on getting married by having a Sacred Heart Wedding, if that is what it is called, I always thought it was. I should call my great aunt (nun of Carmelite of the Word) and ask her, if I do I’ll try to remember to respond back on here.
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I think we should be clear that this is may be a custom done by Catholics, but it is NOT a Catholic liturgy.

The distinction is important.
 
PRmerger said:
I think we should be clear that this is may be a custom done by Catholics, but it is NOT a Catholic liturgy.

The distinction is important.
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This is correct. It was custom, especially prevalent in the Italian community in my diocese. Most of my older relatives, who married in the fall, winter or early spring had such weddings.

It mostly involved the colors- red dresses for the attendants and they carried white flowers.
Why it became know as a 'Sacred Heart wedding" I don’t know, but it must be a regional/ethnic thing.
 
WiccanWoman said:
:eek: Really? That’s funny… I attended one long ago, which is why I ask. I have been out of touch with the couple for some time, though.

Held in church… red and white flowers (bouquets and altar pieces)… red trim on her veil… red shoes beneath the hem of her white gown… there was a special devotional prayer said… and there are specific invitations on-line for such a wedding…

topdownloadables.com/2013/christian-wedding-invitation-templates/

". . . Catholic couples sometimes have a “Sacred Heart” wedding with red and white as the color scheme. Our niece chose this theme. Her bridesmaids wore white dresses with red sashes and they carried red roses. Her invitations were white with red borders. . . "

Yeah, I guess there is no such thing… :rolleyes:
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What you’re finding is that there is a lot of room for improvisation in the depiction of a Catholic wedding that will still prove “realistic”. A lot of Catholic weddings include things that are personal or even that aren’t “correct”. What you want to avoid is a) the little details that are not realistic and b) implying that something is more than a local tradition or something that the couple thought up or saw and liked at someone else’s wedding.

For instance, I recently read a depiction of a Catholic church–written by a Catholic no less!–that referred to the statues in the church as “idols”. Ack!! :eek: :eek: No! No! No! Statues in a Catholic church are NOT NOT NOT idols!!! Even if it is totally realistic that this particular guy calls them that, leave that kind of mistake OUT of your book. It would be very distracting.

This is the kind of thing you’ll want to watch out for. If you want to describe a Catholic wedding where the couple decides to have a “Sacred Heart” wedding with red colors, that would be realistic. It might make a liturgist roll his or her eyes, but there are places where such a thing would, alas, be more realistic than not. 😉 Just be careful that you don’t have the priest looking the rite up in one of his liturgical books, because there won’t be a “Sacred Heart wedding” in any of them. Don’t have the couple’s good friend, the bishop, presiding at a wedding on a beach instead of in a church. Go to the trouble of having the wedding go according to canon law, even if you’ve been to weddings that didn’t. It will be less distracting as a story element.

Mostly, be careful that you don’t mix in Episcopal or Anglican traditions by mistake. I think people must read about weddings with a priest in attendance or a wedding held in a cathedral with clergy in vestments, assume that it is Catholic, and not realize that the two are quite different.
 
This might help you out; it is the written policies for weddings, written by the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon. It notes which policies are according to canon law and which are according to the dictates of the local archbishop. archdpdx.org/family/marriagepolicy.pdf

If you have a particular setting for the wedding in mind, check with that diocese and see if they have a similar written policy available. You might also find the diocese has a person whose job it is to answer questions concerning liturgical rules. I have found people in diocesan offices to be a very helpful lot. If you have* short *sections of prose that you’d like to have read for accuracy and to avoid inadvertent insults to the Church, you might find help there, since that is a refreshing thing for someone writing fiction about the Church to ask. The worst that can happen is that you’ll ask and they’ll have to turn you down because they’re too swamped with real questions to take the time.
 
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