Catholic weddings

Everything you need to know for a fabulous Catholic wedding celebration

Congratulations! You’re engaged!

Before you happily starting scribbling a list of guests and giggling at how great you gift list will be though, you will need to organise a wedding ceremony that suits you both – and if you both are practising Catholics, you will no doubt want to have a Catholic wedding.

If that’s the case, you can choose to have your Catholic ceremony held with Holy Communion included for both of you, (called a Nuptial Mass) or, for example, if one of you is Catholic and one isn’t, you can choose to have your Catholic ceremony - including readings and prayers - but no Communion.

The vows are the same, whichever version you choose!

First you need to see your parish priest…

First things first.

Before you hot-foot it off to choose a frock and suit, you will need to make an appointment with your local parish priest to check he is willing to perform the ceremony, check the church is free on the date you have chosen, pay an initial deposit (towards the church service being held, the heating and lighting on the day and the choir if you choose to have them there) and fill out a few forms giving your names and addresses for the legal publication of your wedding ‘banns’.

Don’t worry, this simply means announcing your intended marriage and the banns are published by being read aloud during the service on three successive Sundays preceding the ceremony. The congregation is invited to register objections, if they have any (fingers crossed they don’t!) You will usually be expected to be in attendance on at least one of the three occasions when the banns are published.

If you both live in different parishes, or are getting married in a parish other than the one in which you are registered, the banns need to be published in both parishes.

The church that will not be holding the ceremony will issue a certificate stating that the banns have been published. This certificate needs to be produced to the officiating minister before the ceremony can proceed. If your wedding doesn’t go ahead within three months of the banns being published, the banns will have to be published again.

If only one of you is Catholic, banns are not published, so the priest of the Catholic partner will have to give permission for the marriage to take place in a Catholic Church. Your parish priest will also consider whether to apply for a Dispensation to Marry. This is a permit issued by the Catholic Church giving permission for a Catholic to marry someone who isn’t a Catholic.

Phew! Right, once that stage is complete, you can then progress on to planning the wedding ceremony…

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