Anyone have a Catholic wedding? Help please...?

Question

I am not Catholic(My parents and sister are, but i was never baptised) My fiances family is Catholic also. So first question is, do i need to be baptised to get married in the church? Second, with the premarriage classes, can you tell me how far in advance you had to take them before you got married? Thanks so much.

Answer 1

Typically you will need to convert and be "official" within the catholic church bu being baptized. There ARE churches that accept none baptised people, but I am not sure if they are everywhere (we live in San Francisco, so it was easy to find one here).

The classes vary depending on the church.

Answer 2

Yes, you must be baptised, then take classes for holy communion and confirmation.  But what you should do is make an appointment to speak to a priest in your parish. He will give you all the information you need.  I would start as soon as you can.

Answer 3

You will absolutely need to do PreCana or something similar but talk to the priest where you want to marry, you may have to be baptized as well as confirmed.

Answer 4

No, you don't need to be baptized or even convert to be married in the Catholic church. My FI's mother is Catholic and his father is Jewish. He was not baptized. We are getting married in the Church.

You will have to do all the marriage preparation coursework and paperwork.

You can even have a full mass-obviously, you can't receive communion.

Good luck. There is alot of misinformation out there. If you are curious, you can google the canon law related to marriages and find out that what I am saying is true. This question is asked here on Yahoo answers at least once a week.

Answer 5

you will want to check with the priest and the diocese. we were married in the DC archdiocese but our priest was from a church in northern new jersey (he is a family friend). our initial meeting with the local church required that we both be baptised catholic (we were) but our priest said that he is open to marrying people in the church as long as one person is catholic.

as for classes, we did ours with the baltimore diocese and it was a weekend class....about 3 months beforehand. we stayed at a local monastary with a group of couples and it was basically like a series of "lectures" about different marriage topics. you'll have to check around to see what options you have. we chose the weekend thing because we were long distance and a weekly class wasn't practical.

hope this helps!! good luck!

Answer 6

yess you have to be baptised b4 you get married!! its a must!!

and about the classes.when you go to the church to arrange ur wedding they tell you all about the classes and when you need to take them!

Answer 7

I'm a recently converted Catholic, and i am planning on getting married in a few years in a nuptial mass.  basically, to recieve communion at your wedding (Nuptial Mass) you will have to be baptised, confirmed, and recieve your first communion BEFORE the wedding.  our marriage prep courses up here are 5-6 months long.  Catholics and non Catholics CAN get married, but there are other things you have to fulfill.  the easiest way you can figure this out is to talk to the priest, deacon, or whomever is going to be giving you your marriage prep course.  they should be able to explain the intracacies of it all.  remember though... becoming Catholic just to get married is kind of a half hearted decision.  I would reccommend looking into becoming baptised and confirmed independent of your decision to marry a Catholic.  it has to be important to you, otherwise it could raise some problems later on in your marriage, although with both families being traditionally Catholic, I am sure this is not a big problem.  Good luck and God bless!

Answer 8

it all really depends on the church and the preist.  you can take the pre cana classes anytime before your marriage but at least six months before.  You may have to get babtized and you may not, call the preist and ask him --he will be happy to help.

Answer 9

I am writing from Australia so things may be a little different where you are...

My Fiance is Atheist and I am Catholic, we are getting married in 2 months (woohoo) and all he had to do was sign a piece of paper (that the priest keeps) that says he will not stop me or any children I bear from practising my religion if I so wish. As for the pre marraige classes we are doing them in 2 weeks it just depends when they are running in your local area...

I would suggest talking to the priest you plan on marrying you and they will be great and explain everything for you Im sure..

GOOD LUCK!!!

Answer 10

To have a marriage in the Catholic church you do need to be baptised.

The premarriage classes depend upon the church itself. Most start about 5 months before the ceremony though some will begin in as little as 2.

Answer 11

You do not need to be Catholic to get married in the Catholic church. It just means you get the 30-35 minute ceremony versus the full mass at about an hour (may vary be region or church). As for the classes, we took ours in February (1 night a week for 5 weeks) but once again, the format, duration and times offered vary per church and region. You need to sit down with the priest at your church and discuss how things work as even the answers you get here will vary greatly as everyone does things just a bit different. My cousin didn't have to do the classes at all, we were able to pick from the intense weekend course or the weekly course and a friend had to do the weekend course AND the weekly course. Good luck and don't stress though. The classes aren't that bad and getting married while not baptised will not be an issue!!!

Answer 12

I am catholic and my fiance is lutheran, after looking into what it would take to have a catholic wedding we decided to get married in a hotel ballroom by his pastor.  Not to be discouraging but it is a pain to have a catholic wedding if you are not both catholic.  Although you can have a wedding in a church when not both of you are catholic you will have to find a priest who will agree to do it...I could not find one.  If your fiance is active in his parish that won't be as much of an issue for you guys.  Most churches will not book your ceremony until you have your first meeting so I would make that appointment as soon as possible then you probably won't start your actual classes until 4-6 months before the wedding.

Answer 13

I am Lutheran and my fiance is Catholic. We are getting married in his church (Catholic church) for some logistic reasons concerning our future children.

You will first need to meet with the Priest of the Catholic Church you are planning to be married at. He will ask you some questions (ie: Why do you want to get married there? How long have you been dating? etc.) He then will let you know what he needs from you to be married in that particular church (baptism certificats, pre-marriage classes etc.).

You do have to be baptized. Our Priest asked us to bring in our baptism certificates before we are to be married (If we do not have them we would have to bring in afadavids).

I choose not to have communion at the wedding because if we did only the Catholics could recieve it. I didnt want to be left out of my own wedidng along with my entire family so we opted not to have it.

You do need to take a Pre-Cana class. The sooner you take it the better because after you take your class you can then meet with your Priest again to discuss the logistics of the wedding. The Pre- Cana class was held on a Saturday and it was about 8 hours long. It sounds bad but it wasnt. We took our Pre-Cana class in early February (getting married this November) although you can definitly take it closer to your wedding date. We also had to take a "online survey" individually. It asked questions such as "Do you like how you and your fiance communicate?" "Have you and your fiance discussed your future financial obligations?" etc. That way the Priest can go over it and see if you are both on the "same page".

Edit: I do agree with some of the comments above. It was difficult for us to find a Priest that would marry us because I wasnt Catholic also. My fiances church wouldnt marry us so we went to another local church (and they would) but my fiance had to get written permission from his Parish to be married at another Parish.

Hope this all helps!

Good Luck!