Hi there,

I'm getting married later this year to a lovely Catholic girl in a lovely Catholic church. I myself am not Catholic but am a Christian. Everything seems to be pretty much ok with the Priest so far and we have dealt with the whole issue of what we will do when we have kids etc. All is on course for use to get married this summer.

I just have a bit of an odd question. Does anybody know where I might find a script or something like that of what is said during the ceremony? I'm sure various priests do things slightly differently but just the general idea would be good.

The reason I ask is that I accompanied my fiancée and her family to their local church on Christmas Eve and felt like a complete fish out of water. I don't mean that I didn't feel welcome, I certainly did, but there was so much going on that I didn't know about or did wrong or something. Imagine a well intentioned comedy sketch where everything that could go wrong did.

For example I fell over my fiancée when we were coming into the church. I was just following her into the pew when she suddenly stopped and bent down almost sending me head over heels. I thought it was a strange place to tie a shoelace until I found out she was kneeling (to pray?) before entering the pew. Then when I sat down I thought it was a nice touch that there was a padded rail for me to put my feet up on. She informed me that it was for leaning on as her parents frowned. The only time I thought I knew what was going on was when everybody began to recite the lords prayer. Great I thought, I know what is going on here, only to find everybody else suddenly stop dead about 3 lines from the end as I know it, while I stumbled on before I noticed what had happened.

Anyway, understandably I don't want to mess things up on my wedding day so if anybody knows of such a script and can point me at it I will be very grateful. As I am non Catholic we will not being doing any kind of communion or mass during the service if this helps.

Thanks

Roddy

(sorry to everybody who read this twice as I posted it in the wrong thread first time around.)

-- Roddy Pudding (no@address.com), January 07, 2005

Answers

The actual wedding ceremony is the exchange of vows. You won't mess this up because the priest will lead you through it phrase by phrase, and you (and she) just repeat what he says. Also, you will be having a rehearsal shortly before the actual event, to go through everything you both have to do during the ceremony.

If you want to review the prayers of the Mass, every Catholic church has, either in the pews or in a rack at the back of the church, a "mass book" or missal, which contains all the prayers of the Mass, both the ones that are the same at every Mass, and the ones that change through the church year. I'm sure your fiancee's priest will let you borrow one.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 07, 2005.

Roddy,

I loved your story. Catholics don't realize how foreign a mass is to a Protestant!

My husband and I converted to catholocism after years in other Protestant denominations. Our first experience at mass was a little frightning as well. We were sure we had neon signs on our backs screaming "PROTESTANT! PROTESTANT!"

First, we sat out in the car and watched everyone go in. They looked ordinary enough, so we tried to sneak in after everyone else. Well, that was a BIG mistake. Father Gary, who is about 6'8" saw us as we crept in. He practically leapt (like a gazelle) down the aisle to greet us. Unfortunately for us, all the seats were taken in the back so guess where we had to go? UP FRONT! (No Catholic, we found out later, would EVER willingly sit in the front pew . . . so there was our neon sign after all!) Of course we couldn't see whenever everyone else was kneeling since we were in the front, so consequently we kneeled when we were supposed to stand, and we stood when we were supposed to kneel!

Nonetheless, we fell in love with the mass and have been there ever since. It's beauty and majesty are unequaled anywhere else!

Are you going to convert? If so, the RCIA classes you will attend will explain the mass in detail. Otherwise, just keep going and eventually you'll get the hang of it . . . I promise!

Gail

-- Gail (rothfarms@socket.net), January 14, 2005.