Mixed Religion Wedding

[Cora]

Alright, I'm a little ahead of myself at this moment, but I'm having a hard time figuring out a compromise with the hubby-to-be.

We are a mixed-religion couple: My fiance is Catholic (was days from becoming a pastor before changing his mind) and I am Pagan. We share very similar lives and thought processes, but the religion issue has been popping up everywhere whenever the "W" word comes up. He's very accepting of my beliefs and I of his, but there is a huge matter of how we will married. He believes very strongly in being wed in a church and that's really the last place I want to be, in addition to the strong religious overtones throughout the ceremony.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Our budget is tight and two weddings (which has already been a suggestion) are really NOT an option.

[peeps]

Hi Cora

Sorry to hear about your dilemma.

I know that in order to get married in the catholic church you will need to take marriage counselling courses etc for a long period of time

Do you think you can convince your FH to have a civil ceremony which involves a minister?
Or your other option is doing it in a chapel such as minoru where it's not TOO religious -- in this way you will both be making a compromise for each others happiness.
That's all i can think of right now.
Hope it works out

[Rosalie]

Hi Cora, I have a lot of sympathy. I am Catholic but my fiance is not. I don't really consider myself a good Catholic but I do go to Church once in a while and I was raised that way. My sister also landed in the same boat. I always pictured getting married in a Church and since my family, especially my Mom is very relgious we decided to go this way. However I told my fiance that if he wasn't comfortable we could look at lots of other options. He hemmed an hawed a lot over it.

If you are not specifically anti-Catholic my advice to you would be to go meet the officiant who would actually be performing the ceremony. Although it's true if you get married Catholic you can't get away without some religious overtones a huge amount depends on your priest. Our priest is great, really laid back and relaxed. Talk to him about all your concerns. You can say your own vows, we can pick some of our own music, and you can get a shortened ceremony that doesn't include communion and some of the rest of the traditional mass. After we sat down with the priest and talked my fiance was really comfortable with him and it made him feel a lot better about the whole thing. Similarly, the priest who married my sister was her fiance's running partner and he came to the rehersal in a football jersey. My fiance's attitude now is well we had to get married somewhere and at least this way we don't have to worry about a rain location. The marriage classes really aren't that bad. Mostly common sense stuff that you should talk about before you get married anyway. We are doing the 3 Saturdays in a row option so not really that onerous timewise either.

I don't know if this was helpful or not as I'm coming from the other side of argument and I don't know how important not having any religion involved is to you. If you're really anti-Catholic maybe you could compromise in a non-denominational Church as the previous post suggested which would still involve God for your fiance but without as much religious ceremony. You both sound very supportive of each other. Hope it works out for you.