Getting Married
Getting Married in the Catholic Parish of Our Lady and All Saints and preparation for couples living here who are planning a wedding abroad.
Congratulations! If you are reading this then presumably you are engaged and planning your wedding. We will help you in every way that we can; we hope your wedding day is a great celebration of your love for your fiancé. Please give us at least six months notice. If you are planning a date, a reception venue, etc., then do check with us before you get into too much detail. It is very important to us that you are well prepared for married life.
One of the Priests will meet with you a few times before your wedding day, and there are also two days of preparation with other couples. That may all sound a bit daunting, but the feedback from many, many couples is that they could not have imagined getting married without this preparation, once they had done it. On a practical note, we need six months because there is also a fair amount of paperwork and it would be dreadful if your wedding was planned for a specific day and the paperwork did not arrive in time.
To be married in a Catholic church, the only conditions are that one or both of the couple is a Baptised Catholic, that neither have been married before, in a church or anywhere else, and that you will do all that you can to uphold and practice the Catholic faith. If you have been married before, please do call us because we may still be able to help, but we will need to have a chat together to see what is possible. And these things do not mean that a non-Catholic needs to become a Catholic so as to marry a Catholic! If the non-Catholic is of a different faith, or no faith at all, you are very, very welcome to be married in a Catholic church.
To be married in a Catholic church does not cost you anything. There are set fees for the person who will certify your marriage for the state (currently about £70); for an organist, if you have one (also about £70); and for flowers if you use those who do the flower arranging in our churches (fee depends on the flowers you choose). Of course, we welcome a donation for the church, and for the Priest, but there is no set fee for this, and it is a donation, at your discretion. If you are planning to be married abroad then as a Catholic you should arrange your wedding in a Catholic Church. Please do talk to us about this; if you have made these arrangements then the Priest local to where you are getting married will expect paperwork from us. This can take a particularly long time to arrange – please give plenty of notice : six to eight months at least. There will be lots more to talk about, but hopefully this basic information helps you in your initial enquiries. Please introduce yourself to one of the Priests after Mass and we will take it on from there.
And again, congratulations!