Wedding Entrance Songs

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Because until the last few centuries, married people were supposed to abstain from sex (ie, observe continence) during Advent and Lent, as well as in all fast days, and from midnight before receiving Communion. Getting married at the wrong time implied that consummation would be impossible for weeks, unless the newlywed couple started marriage with some sinning right after the Sacrament.

This is also why there were some Catholic weddings with nuptial Masses at midnight. (Such as the saintly Martins, the parents of St. Therese. And they were not even planning to consummate. But it allowed their friends not to have to worry about fasting et al.)

Even when it was permitted in the West, continence during fasting times was still pretty common as a voluntary custom, and many local bishops (like in Ireland) commanded it for hundreds of years afterward. And in the East, the custom has never ceased, although people can get exceptions from their pastors, I guess.

So yes, there is a reason the Church (in the Latin Rite) lets people marry in Advent, but there are plenty of reasons that it “seems weird”.
 
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When my wife and I got married in 2006, I found a website of CATHOLIC wedding music.

It was a big help
 
ProVobis said:
So is there any music the Church disallows?
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@ProVobis

Yes, at times, some priests have outlawed certain numbers. In pre-Vatican II days, my priest permitted only traditionally Catholic music, and limited that to a short list.

I begged for, “On This Day, O Beautiful Mother,” when I placed my bouquet at Our Lady’s side altar. My father had a beautiful Irish tenor voice, but Father didn’t want Dad to sing Ave Maria, either; I’ve forgotten his reasons. After a few weeks of grief, though, he did relent on both. I’ve also forgotten the other two songs that Dad sang, but a lot happened that day . . .

I don’t know about now, but back then, the bridal underskirts were made of three or four wire covered hoops in graduated sizes with what was known as horsehair (not really from horses, though). Those hoops were held in place by narrow strips of fabric sometimes called bias tape.

Yes! I HAD practiced kneeling in it! I didn’t make the giant faux pas of kneeling while the hoop sailed up in an arch behind me, but I did get a spike heel caught in the hoop, and pierced the lace of the pretty slip that covered the hoop. It took forEVER to get my shoe out of that mess without having to turn around, and still keep that hoop from billowing up in back. I could feel that my face was bright red.

Our Church was very old, with large grates on each side between the front pews and Communion rails. When walking over it in heels, women had to bear all their weight on the balls of their feet or . . . Yes, you’ve guessed correctly!

I had broken two metatarsals and the surgeon had cut off the cast the day before, about a week early, with a totally unexpected order to avoid heels for another six weeks. Well, you ladies can imagine that we simply could not get that huge hem shortened in less than a day, so I wore the spikes.

It was the shoe on the broken foot that had been hung up in my hoop, and repetitive twisting to free it had weakened my ankle. As I tried to keep my weight on my toes, with a still-red face from the hoop debacle, my foot gave way & that spike heel lodged firmly in the grate.

I was mortified, and so was Mother! I couldn’t even get the heel to wiggle, so, in total embarrassment, I slipped my foot out of the shoe and kept that foot on tiptoe throughout the rest of the ceremony and while exiting down that long aisle with my new husband. Cowboy Hopalong Cassidy was still big in TV reruns, so you can guess my nickname throughout the reception!
 
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I remember my mother telling me that those hoop skirts were fashionable when she was getting married and she hated them so she either made sure to find a dress that didn’t need them or had the seamstress take them out of the outfit she chose, I forget which.
 
Your assertion that the Church has not agreed with me about advent weddings for the majority of it’s history was misleading and false. Preconciliar? For the majority of the Church it did not govern that at all because it wasn’t liturgical. So, The accurate statement is that for the majority of Church history and the majority of the" preconciliar" Church the Church allowed people to marry whenever they wished.
But honestly it doesn’t really matter. For the vast majority of history Churches were lit by sunshine and candles. Who cares? As a traditionalist, I side with your thinking on several things. But we need to be careful to be accurate and also respect the Church that we live in today. Because that is what we are held accountable to, the Church we live in. I have a heart for the past as well, but my soul resides in the now, not in the then or in the to be.
 
Wasn’t it Fr Corapi who said some of us marry our hair shirt?
 
@IdaCatholic

“Your assertion that the Church has not agreed with me about advent weddings for the majority of it’s (sic) history was misleading and false.”

Please cite documentation for this claim.
 
From the wiki above.

Liturgical practice[edit]​

Matrimony, for most of Church history, had been celebrated (as in traditions such as the Roman and Judaic) without clergy and was done according to local customs. The first available written detailed account of a Christian wedding in the West dates only from the 9th century and appears to be identical to the old nuptial service of Ancient Rome.[40] However, early witnesses to the practice of intervention by the clergy in the marriage of early Christians include Tertullian, who speaks of Christians “requesting marriage” from them,[49] and Ignatius of Antioch, who said Christians should form their union with the approval of the bishop – although the absence of clergy placed no bar, and there is no suggestion that the recommendation was widely adopted.[13]

In the 4th century in the Eastern Church it was the custom in some areas for marriages to receive a blessing by a priest to ensure fertility.[50] There are also a few accounts of religious nuptial services from the 7th century onward.[51] However, while in the East the priest was seen as ministering the sacrament, in the West it was the two parties to the marriage (if baptized) who effectively ministered, and their concordant word was sufficient proof of the existence of a sacramental marriage, whose validity required neither the presence of witnesses nor observance of the law of the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council that demanded publication of the banns of marriage.[52]
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My assertion is for the majority of Church HIstory there was no ban on advent weddings. LLD said that the preconcillior Church did not agree with it. While that may or may not have been the case for a few hundred years. ( I think we can debate that given the wedding records in my parish) For over a thousand years the Church did not have that opinion because it wasn’t liturgical in nature. People got married according the the culture and local custom. You know, like now.
 
Well, idacatholic, I guess we’re still arguing about this. I believe I said that the Church has “agreed with you” for fifty-some years, and “disagreed with you” for who-knows-how many centuries.
So, it became the practice for Catholics to have a sacramental wedding with a priest in 1215. So for the first twelve centuries, there pretty much were no church weddings (I find that dubious, but I will follow what the article said). So that means that for about seven and a half centuries, Advent weddings did not occur, and for about fifty some years they have.
Have you personally seen your parish records with lots of weddings in Advent before 1965 or so? How about Lent?
Also see #286
http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/baltimore/bsacr-m.htm
 
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@StRaphaelPray4Us

You wrote a lovely post. I’m disappointed that you are withdrawing it.
 
Canticanova is the best website to give music recommendations for Mass.
 
You do realize that many parishes won’t schedule baptisms or weddings during Advent, Lent, and the Triduum, right (With the Triduum, though, it’s already a given that you can’t celebrate weddings during that time, because unless one is in danger of death, the only Sacraments that can be received until the time of the Easter Vigil are Penance and the Anointing of the Sick)?
 
Indeed. I was grateful not to be required to have a wedding that necessitated playing an organ, an instrument I heartily dislike.
 
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Wait – you played a role as some kind of keyboard musician in Catholic church, and you were thankful not to have to play the main instrument of the Church?
 
Loud-living-dogma said:
Have you personally seen your parish records with lots of weddings in Advent before 1965 or so? How about Lent?
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You piqued my curiosity so I went through the records I have for my baptismal parish between 1858 and 1920.

In the early years there weren’t that many marriages, and most were celebrated in summer and early fall.

In all those years I found 2 in Advent and 2 during Lent. Lots of the winter weddings were celebrated on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday or the Monday and Tuesday of the week before the First Sunday of Advent.

Those celebrated during Lent were in 1883 & 1889, those in Advent were in 1915 & 1918.
 
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No I dont realize that. Not scheduling baptisms for over 40 days is spiritually irresponsible.
 
IdaCatholic said:
No I dont realize that. Not scheduling baptisms for over 40 days is spiritually irresponsible.
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But you’d be surprised at how many parishes refuse to celebrate any but the emergency ones during Lent. Then again, there are those parishes that insist on having a birth certificate in hand before celebrating a baptism and that can take up to 6 weeks to obtain depending on where you live.
 
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