The $120,000 wedding....Follow

I've got a question about church weddings, do you have to be a memeber of the church? With all the holy communion stuff?

When I was a kid my mom got in an argument with the sunday school teachers and I never finished all that junk. Now as I get closer to finishing college and closer to the date my bf and I were thinking about, I realize I really want a big church wedding.

Top Tip, Don't bother.

Church weddings are dull and expencive, they know they have a captive audience and put little or no effort in what so ever.

Heh, I got a story about the $250,000 wedding my cousin had.

Yup, they paid for it and they could afford it. She's a senior chemical engineer with Standard Oil and he's a lawyer in one of those big law firms. And with our big Filipino family and the fiance's huge Polish family, the guest list approached the size of a small town. Most of the money went towards the food, photography, traveling and lodging (they paid for everyone to fly to Chicago and stay at the Hilton O'Hare). They even booked cars and drivers and limos to transport all the guests and they apparently had to pay for traffic control at the reception area. Reception was so large they had to to book all the ball rooms. It was, to say the least, overwhelming. But the wedding wasn't just for one day. There were family parties and the dinner rehearsal held over a course of several days. So it was more like a family reunion, family greeting, family mingling, family celebration.

Was it fun? Yeah. Was it worth it? To them it was, considering the fact that they already bought two houses, a boat and a lot of other things, the money wasn't much of an issue. Would I do that? Heck no, I liked my smaller, simpler wedding. But our vow renewal ceremony (to do the Catholic blessing) will be on a larger scale, just not the enormous scale my cousin did it with.

I wanted to get married in Vegas but my ex-fiance is the one that wanted a wedding in a church with all the family present. I just can't see myself boring my family to death like that. If anything I'd rather just have the wedding be private and inexpensive and have the family go out with us for drinks.

Finally, my dreams have come true.

All the Catholic churches in my neck of the woods require you to have been a member of the parish for at least 6-8 months before you can take the counseling courses. So you can't just walk in and say "Sign me up, I'm Catholic!"

Yeah, but no one would take us and eventually Tare and I had to get married in Vegas of all places.

Vegas! Oy vey!

If they live in San Fran, $120k won't buy a house. Maybe a nice cardboard box.

if you want a church like wedding more for the setting than the extent behind it, look into chapels. I found a beautiful stone chapel with ringing bell atop for $150 to use, including rehersal and the wedding proper. Inside was solid oak, the ceiling was arched with ribbed wood and candled sconces lined the walls. Painted glass window in the front center. Non religious. Simply divine.


look around either online or drive around. Usually you can find them near the cemetaries because they're also used for non religious funerals. Most of the time they're set apart though so youre not walking out of the chapel ian directly infront of gravestones

My wedding is going to be fun.

Supposedly I have to convert to Islam, since my gf is a Muslim.

Now THAT will be weird.

Weird. May be a regional thing then? I've spoken to my sister, my brother, and another pair of friends that all did the weekend retreat/course thing. All of them said it was open to anyone as long as you paid for it, and specifically mentioned that there were several couples there that were not Catholic at all (ie: not just one being of another faith).

While at least one of you has to be Catholic, and the other go through some special steps in order to be married in the church itself, I've always understood that their marriage training retreats were open to anyone. In fact, I've often recommended them to anyone planning to get married, Catholic or not. Everyone I've known who's gone to them has come back amazed at just how many things it simply never occured to them to talk about prior to tying the knot. Basic stuff like whether and how many children you want to have. Do you want to live in the country? Or the city? Should both work? Or just one? If so, which one? Dogs or cats? Lots of silly things that people who are going to spend the rest of their lives together *should* discuss at some point along the way, but most couples don't are covered. It's not really that much about religion from what I've heard...

The course sometimes even isn't run by the Catholic church. You have to be a member of the parish to be married there, though, and most couples don't sign up for the course until a date and location have been set. It's part of a series of interviews, not just a one-weekend thing.