Wedding Wednesday: Meeting the Priest

Happy Wednesday!

I'm following in the foot steps of a fellow blogger who use to do Wedding Wednesday's. It was one of my favorite posts by her, check out Danielle's blog over at Schnelle!

As most of you know, Fiance and I are finally planning our wedding for next June 27, 2015!

I'm in total planning mode, but also making sure to enjoy it. It only happens once after all! (Well for most of us!) I feel that time is just slipping by and I always wanted to document my planning and we started planning in the beginning of February and it's already July! So I thought to myself what better way to document it is by sharing it with everyone who follows my blog. I also wanted to use it as a helpful tool for people that are also planning their wedding. :)

Anyway, yesterday Fiance & I had a scheduled meeting to meet with the priest who would marry us. I always pictured my wedding to be at my church in my hometown, but unfortunately, with churches consolidating, this would no longer be an option. Not to mention we both no longer live in that area. 

I am Catholic and Fiance is not. But one of my father's requirements were when my fiance asked for permission is that we have a Catholic mass and we raise our children Catholic. My father is a very strict Catholic and I grew up attending church every Sunday since I was a little girl. Now that I am older and have a career things have changed for me and I am not able to do that as often as I want. So needless to say I was scared meeting the priest who would marry us...

One of the things that I didn't realize, and maybe if you're Catholic you already know this, but I needed to join the church I was to be married in. I already belonged to a church in my hometown and whenever I would go in to visit friends and family I would always attend church there, so I never thought to joining the church where I live now. So, that was step 1 for me!

We got the paperwork out of the way and he started to discuss the steps needed to become married. Besides joining the church, Fiance and I are to meet with the priest again to do what is called an "Inventory". This session takes about a hour and a half of our time, and its basically a "Test" of Fiance and I's strengths and weaknesses. The priest will go over the tests and look for things that would cause concern and he discusses the with us. I'm not 100% on all the details so I don't want to share until we actually go through the process. My next meeting is August 11. 

The next step is that Fiance and I need to attend classes. And for the church that I now belong to, I have three options:

1) Go to classes

2) Meet with a sponsored couple who is willing to go through everything that would happen in class

3) Go on a weekend retreat

Fiance & I enjoy the idea of a weekend retreat, so that will most likely happen. 

After the weekend retreat we do not need to meet with the priest until after Easter (a couple month before the wedding). What needs to happen at the point is I need to share proof of my baptism and Fiance needs his parents to attest that he was baptized (since he is not Catholic) the Catholic church has no proof of him being baptized. The priest said that with Catholics there is a paper trail easy to find(including if you were married previously or not!).

Another very important thing I learned was we are not allowed to have a Full mass(when I say full mass, I mean with communion). If we truly wanted to have a full mass my fiance would need to write a letter to the Bishop explaining why he wants to have a full mass(and telling the Bishop that we want to have a full mass because my father wants us to will not cut it! haha) The reason for this is unity. A marriage ceremony is about two people becoming one entity, and if I were to have a full mass and I were to receive communion and my fiance did not, that shows separation, and he states that's not what it's supposed to be when starting a life together. 

The priest went on to explain to us about marriage and that marriage is to last a life time and that today it's so common for divorces because it's so easy to quit. And I completely agree with him! 

Anyway, we are booked for the church I couldn't be happier. I'll share a picture of the church. It's not my own picture so I do not take credit.  (When I get time I'll take a walk down and take pictures of the church, it really is beautiful!) Actually, the church is right across from a beautiful levy, I hope to take pictures along the levy with family and the bridesmaids and groomsmen.

 

I also wanted to share my outfit that I wore to meet the priest. 

Dress: Target/Cardigan: New York & Company/Flats: DSW

Necklace is actually a Pandora charm that my mom bought me for my birthday. She was so excited for me to meet the priest I wanted her there with me in some way(I know it sounds silly!). 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post, there's so much more I want to share, I may even want to do two posts a week as the wedding gets closer. :)

Have a great night!