Planning your wedding ceremony is not an easy task, having a religious ceremony, Catholic in this case, will make you go a little bit more nuts! Then how about we involve two dioceses and two different parishes working together, oh things are getting fun around here!
Our wedding is less than 6 months away, we started our Catholic Wedding preparation about two months ago. First step was to schedule an appointment with the priest, different dioceses and priests will request various documents and classes so you are better of checking with them before going crazy looking for your Baptism or Confirmation Certificate... ours were in another country and in a church that is no longer open, so the digging was real.
Once we submitted all the documents and met with the priest once, we were given a "test" to see how much of a couple we were or where we needed to connect a little bit more. The priest mentioned 2 additional courses that were required in the preparation. One is to get you ready for marriage, the role of it on the church, the sacrament itself and a view of what marriage could be like, given by different couples (Pre-Cana or Convalidation). The second course will focus on family planning - Natural Family Planning or NFP - this one course is given on 3 different days through out 3 months.
Our first reaction, while we knew courses were required and were looking forward to them, was "how many courses and how many hours?" the second reaction was "how much??!!??"
While getting married is totally free, we are required to pay for the preparation classes that are given by different groups or organizations approved by the parish. Luckily we were able to choose which class to attend, we compared locations, schedules and even fees, as we are trying to "stay on budget". Truth is, we did not have all these fees included in our budget, so be prepared to have some extras here and there for the ceremony/wedding preparation.
I am not going to lie, my stress level was a little bit high while looking and comparing the courses. When you are planning a wedding abroad, the timing for things is key! We should finish our preparation classes and remaining meetings with the priest 3 months before the wedding, when if we were having a local wedding, we could do the wedding preparation weeks before the big day.
The wedding will be at my hometown in Costa Rica, we have booked the church and the priest in Miami has all the details of where to send the documents once we are "approved" for marriage. So far, we have only taken one of the NFP classes. We really enjoyed learning and sharing with other couples who are also getting ready for this big step.
My final advice: do not forget about the ceremony and all the non crafty aspects of it. You can make your unity candle in one hour or less, getting ready for a sacrament takes longer than that. Time is everything when planning a wedding, time is all you have when planning a wedding abroad, be smart about it, keep a journal, a calendar and whatever else you need to make pre-wedding life easier.
Good luck!
Kelly
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