Question about wedding ceremony

[Karen_L 1]

Hi. This is KINDA off-topic, but I decided to post this in here because I know lots of non-Muslim ladies in here are engaged/married to Muslim men, and maybe one of you can share your experience with me regarding the sort of wedding you had. If (God willing) my fiance' gets his visa (his interview is only - egads! - 9 days away!!) we'll have a small civil service, to satisfy the terms of the visa. But we both want to eventually have a much larger wedding ceremony with family and friends (and hopefully his parents and brother will be allowed to visit us).

The problem is this: I am Catholic and he is Muslim. We're both "spiritual" and we believe in God and we share many religious beliefs outside of our respective religions. I have no desire to convert to Islam and he has no desire to become a Catholic, though we are interested in each other's religious backgrounds. I know that Muslim men are permitted to marry Christian and Jewish women, but I'm concerned because I recently read that the Vatican has issued some kind of warning against Catholic girls marrying Muslim men. I would LOVE to have a church wedding someday (because it's traditional and nice, you know...) and he has no problem with having a church service either, but I know that before they'll let you get married in the church (they = the pastor, I guess) you need to take special classes and I'm worried that we won't be able to find a Catholic church that won't do as the Vatican suggested and discourage our marriage. I think Catholics are *technically* allowed to marry whomever we please, but that doesn't mean a priest will necessarily allow it. Also, last time I was in church (for a funeral) the service had this weird emphasis on being CATHOLIC and avoiding things that aren't CATHOLIC, you know?

Has anyone in here dealt with this sort of issue in the recent past? What kind of wedding services have people in here had? Sorry if this is kind of a goony question, but I'm kinda afraid to call the church nearby and ask because I'm afraid of the reaction I will get (::scardy-cat??:: ) and I'd like to hear from some people who have experienced this before and know what sort of reactions they have received when attempting to plan the wedding.

thank you SO much! I know the actual service means very little in the grand scheme of things, but aside from wanting to do it myself, it's something I'd like to do for my mother, who REALLY wants us to marry in a nice traditional church service. AND I think my fiance' and I have earned a really nice wedding!

(P.S. -- I would also LOVE to do any traditional Muslim/Albanian wedding rituals too)

- Karen

[babybunny 2]

you might wanna read this website..

www.islamonline.com

there are various Q&A stuff here. maybe you will discover a few things about

each other. because religion is really a matter of the heart some how you both will have to agree on

something. My friends husband refuse to enter into a church because he is muslim.

and Christians are not allowed in Masjid. you both are young when the kiddies comes thats when

things change.

I just took a islamic/ christian class. The belifes are totally diffrent.

[Donna A 4]

i am christian (not catholic) and my husband is muslim. we had our civil ceramony in syria and then got remarried in a mosque here. it was just the two of us (except 2 witnesses) both times. we didnt feel the need for a big wedding. i never felt good about the judge marrying us so i insisted apon a religious ceremony. it didnt bother me at all going to a mosque because God is God no matter where u r. religion is just how u praise God in my opinion.

instead of a church wedding maybe u can do a lake side wedding or in a park or something like that so u can have ur big wedding with the justice of the peace or something like that. that way u dont have to worry about religious ceremony. thats kinda meeting in the middle. u get ur big wedding and religion is not the problem.

i think christians are not permitted to marry outside the faith because of the children mainly. ive heard many years that catholics should not marry outside the faith. my ex father in law had to convert to catholic from orthodox before he could marry my ex mother in law. so i think that has been a practice for manyyears. i dont think its a new thing in the vatican.

[MHandMB 0]

I'm sorry I can't help you with the catholic part of this, as I am not catholic and don't know much about the requirements to marry in a catholic church. However, I can tell you what we're doing.

We had the civil thing (which consisted of us just signing a piece of paper and getting it notarized and filed with the clerk's office- South Carolina doesn't ask for much!) but we are also having our wedding in November.

Amed and I both respect each other's religions, and we want some spiritual aspect to the ceremony, but he felt uncomfortable having it in a church, and I felt uncomfy having it in a mosque. We're having it outside, by the river. We're having a preacher do the ceremony, and we're going to read passages from the Bible and from the Koran. We're going to have prayer (because we both pray to the same God), and we're going to write our own vows.

I wouldn't feel bad if I were you about calling the church to see what they say. They're supposed to be here to help you, not judge you, and they should be happy that you're wanting to get married in church and that your fiance is willing to do so.

Good luck, let us know how it goes!

[Karen_L 1]

Thank you for your replies. I actually have been considering an outside ceremony (though technically Catholics have to get married literally inside the walls of the church for it to 'count' as a Catholic ceremony). Honestly, he and I are not (traditionally) religious; neither of us were raised to be. He's told me many times and that VERY few young - middle aged Albanian people are religious (Muslim or Christian) because of decades of Communism that outlawed both faiths. And my experience with people from Albania seems to back that up -- my observation seems to be that national identity is more important than religious identity (as in "we're all Albanian, so what does it matter?"). It's kind of a particular place/culture and I can't think of any country with a similar social and cultural character.

Our plan vis-a-vis any children we have is to baptize them, but raise them to know about Islam too, to celebrate Bairam, etc. We've talked about this and given that the child will be raised in the US and will be most of the time with my family and since no one in my family is religious enough to keep the child from learning about Islam, he is in agreement.

I'm concerned about the wedding ceremony because my mother wants us - SO MUCH - to wed in a traditional church service, and he and I would like it too. I am very close to my mother, and considering how she is opening her arms to my fiance' and that's she's been SO understanding and kind about my engagement to a boy she's only met one time and how good of a mother she is in general, I feel like it's the least I can do for her.

Now I'm thinking maybe we can go down to lower Manhattan and find some extremely liberal priest who may or may not actually be a priest...

- Karen

[mybackpages 0]

Hi. This is KINDA off-topic, but I decided to post this in here because I know lots of non-Muslim ladies in here are engaged/married to Muslim men, and maybe one of you can share your experience with me regarding the sort of wedding you had. If (God willing) my fiance' gets his visa (his interview is only - egads! - 9 days away!!) we'll have a small civil service, to satisfy the terms of the visa. But we both want to eventually have a much larger wedding ceremony with family and friends (and hopefully his parents and brother will be allowed to visit us).

The problem is this: I am Catholic and he is Muslim. We're both "spiritual" and we believe in God and we share many religious beliefs outside of our respective religions. I have no desire to convert to Islam and he has no desire to become a Catholic, though we are interested in each other's religious backgrounds. I know that Muslim men are permitted to marry Christian and Jewish women, but I'm concerned because I recently read that the Vatican has issued some kind of warning against Catholic girls marrying Muslim men. I would LOVE to have a church wedding someday (because it's traditional and nice, you know...) and he has no problem with having a church service either, but I know that before they'll let you get married in the church (they = the pastor, I guess) you need to take special classes and I'm worried that we won't be able to find a Catholic church that won't do as the Vatican suggested and discourage our marriage. I think Catholics are *technically* allowed to marry whomever we please, but that doesn't mean a priest will necessarily allow it. Also, last time I was in church (for a funeral) the service had this weird emphasis on being CATHOLIC and avoiding things that aren't CATHOLIC, you know?

Has anyone in here dealt with this sort of issue in the recent past? What kind of wedding services have people in here had? Sorry if this is kind of a goony question, but I'm kinda afraid to call the church nearby and ask because I'm afraid of the reaction I will get (::scardy-cat??:: ) and I'd like to hear from some people who have experienced this before and know what sort of reactions they have received when attempting to plan the wedding.

I was in the same situation as you with my first marriage. You can marry a non-catholic in the catholic church but you agree to raise your children Catholic and there are classes you both take. His religion should not be an issue even with the Pope's recent comments. I was married for 20 years so if you have any questions PM me and we can talk.

thank you SO much! I know the actual service means very little in the grand scheme of things, but aside from wanting to do it myself, it's something I'd like to do for my mother, who REALLY wants us to marry in a nice traditional church service. AND I think my fiance' and I have earned a really nice wedding!

(P.S. -- I would also LOVE to do any traditional Muslim/Albanian wedding rituals too)

- Karen

[Bunnyqr 0]

These are all good questions. And from reading this, it sounds like the two of you respect each other's backgrounds and religious upbringing, which is great!

As soon as my fiance and I started talking about engagement and marriage I made an appointment with one of the priests of the church I go to in my neighborhood. He was very helpful. Since I am catholic and my fiance is greek orthodox I wanted to cover all bases before we started planning anything.

I found out a lot of information from the priest and he even brought up things that I didn't even think of to discuss with my fiance.

We now know what we want to do. Get married in the greek orthodox church, have his priest and my priest present and we will raise our children catholic and our children will go to greek culture/language school.

I know this is a different religious situation then you but reaching out to your priest can be a good thing and my experience doing that was very helpful.

Good luck on your decision and I know you will figure out a perfect way that the two of you can be married and bring everything together nicely.