Can we have our wedding outdoors, rather than in a church?

Many Protestant ministers will be willing to assist you with an outdoor wedding. If you are planning a Catholic wedding, this question deserves a fuller explanation…see my response to Stacy….

Dear Father Rob,

I have always dreamed of speaking my wedding vows in a lovely setting on a beach, will the Catholic Church allow me to do this?

Sincerely,
Stacy

Dear Stacy,

This question rates as the most frequently asked question. Let me answer it by giving you a bit of history. As you will see there are some some interesting twists and turns on this question about where Catholic weddings can be celebrated.

In the earliest centuries, weddings took place in family settings and NEVER in the midst of a worship service. In the early Church there was no special ritual for marriage because it was the Christian lives of the couple that made it a “Christian marriage.” (not any ritual).

After 400 AD, when Christianity became the faith of the Empire, and Christians took over the public building of Rome and made them “churches,” then the marriages of CLERGY (notice that priests were married in those days!) began to be celebrated in these church buildings. But not the weddings of ordinary folks.

Only in about 1100AD were the first weddings of lay persons (non-clergy) celebrated in church buildings. The rituals used were still the rituals of families, but gradually people began to use the rituals they witnessed at weddings (in churches) and began to think of these rituals as the official rituals of the Church.

Between 1100AD and the present, there has been a gradual shift toward more standardized ways of doing things in the Catholic Church. Outdoor weddings have been more and more discouraged (and most dioceses in the USA do not allow them) because the Catholic bishops are very concerned about the sad state of marriage in most modern countries. They have seen the divorce rate continue to escalate in the 20th century, and they have seen too many silly stunts (people getting married as they jump out of airplanes, or hold their breath under water). Thus, the bishops are trying to help couples understand the seriousness of Christian marriage and think that, if they require them to be married in churches, they will be more likely to think they are doing something serious and important.

So, while bishops can and do grant exceptions (e.g. if your mother is an invalid and confined to bed, it is easy to get permission to have the wedding in your mother’s home so she can be present at the wedding), they are not likely to give permission for a “garden wedding” out of this concern that such settings give the wrong message about the seriousness and sacredness of the vows.

Personally, I was involved in a few outdoor weddings in the 1970s (before the stricter rules were made), and I know that a couple may have serious and sacred intentions about an outdoor wedding. But I also understand where the bishops are “coming from” because outdoor weddings have to deal with many more difficulties and distractions. One I attended was under constant threat of pouring rain so they had to work out Plan A and Plan B (in case it started raining during the ceremony), and two minutes into the wedding one of the guests tripped over the power cord and no one could figure out how to get it fixed immediately (so the wedding continued with most of the guests not being able to hear what was going on).

I am not going to say that celebrating a wedding in church is any guarantee that the marriage will last; but I do know that it is much more likely that fewer things will go wrong during the ceremony!!

I suspect this is not the answer you had hoped for, but I hope that giving you more of the story helps you to understand why the Catholic Church has decided to require weddings to take place in “sacred places.” Parish churches are, of course, “sacred places” but there are other possibilities. The commentary in the code of canon law says: “Marriages may also be celebrated in churches or oratories other than the parish church, including private oratories. This refers to Catholic churches or oratories and includes shrines, non-parochial churches, and chapels of religious houses, colleges, seminaries, and hospitals. The permission of the local ordinary or pastor is required: the permission of the pastor of one of the parties to celebrate a marriage in another parish church (and presumably that of the pastor of the other church) and the local ordinary’s permission to celebrate in a non-parochial church or oratory. In all such cases the officiating minister must obtain the required delegation to assist either from the pastor of the territorial parish within which the marriage will be celebrated or from the local ordinary.

The local ordinary may also permit a marriage to be celebrated in another suitable place other than a Catholic church or chapel. The determination of what is suitable is left to the local ordinary. One might envision here churches of other denominations, halls, or even private homes.”

So that may give you some ideas you may not have considered.

Peace and Love,

Fr. Rob

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