This is so beautiful Lisa! Nicely done.

Paul and I still attend the church in which we were married—our boys have all been baptized there as well. It is Georgia’s oldest Catholic church, a beautiful old historical gift.

Thanks for posting this—I will certainly take a moment to ponder the gift of this church when I am there on Sunday.

My husband & I were married in what was then “my” parish & that of my parents.  Since that time, however, that beautiful parish (where my Dad actually went to grammar school!) has been closed due to shortage of priests.  ; ( They were combined w/the parish/school where my brother & I attended as elementary students (the school at our parish was closed by then).  It’s a sad reality that I am sure alot of us have had to deal with in these sad times.

What a great topic, Lisa!

Dan and I were married in the Abbey Church at St Anselm College. We take the kids there for Easter Mass every year and sometimes Midnight Mass as well. I love to tell them we were married in that enormously impressive, holy place.

Thanks for sharing!  We were married at a then very new and modern church some fourteen years ago. It seems hard to believe that it was that long ago. While we rarely get back to that church, the priest that married us is a regular part of our lives. We attend Mass at his parish and he baptized all of our children. He has watched our marriage and our children grow and change. I do feel that the church building is important, the human factor...the priest and family that shared in the sacrament...are more important.

My husband and I went to the ND vs. San Diego State game.  We absolutely loved spending time on campus, particularly in the Basilica.  It was powerful to touch the glass casket of St. Severa and gaze upon the many frescoes of the church.  How wonderful to have a geniunely beautiful basilica to honor God and His saints!

P.S.  GO IRISH!

Kristine, I just wanted to thank you for your comment b/c it put into words what I was feeling & thinking but couldn’t quite put my finger on when I thought about this.  God bless your day!!!

I’m so jealous.  I can’t imagine us visiting the magistrate’s office all these years later and tearing up. Or the church where we eventually got married again in a brief, casual thing on a Saturday morning.  I even got mad at my dad for wearing a tie.  These days I avoid even going to that parish because I don’t care for the current priest’s, uh, style of saying Mass. 
Because I am such an unromantic, we celebrate our son’s baptism instead, and I remind him every time we are in my parents’ church that he was baptized into New Life right there.

What a beautiful post. I’ll admit to feeling jealous, though. I was married in my church I grew up in which was Episcopal. We almost got married in my husband’s church, but my mom insisted that marriage should take place in the bride’s church. I went through rcia & converted to the Catholic faith, but wish we had gotten married in the church & had our 1st 3 children Baptized in the Catholic church.

My love and I got married, oh, nine years ago tomorrow! in The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower in San Antonio, Tx. Wonderful day, and we still frequent there for occasional Sunday and daily Mass. Our romantic girls just love going to the church we were married in, not to mention that they love St. Therese.
It is such a blessing to partake in the Eucharist with your children,the fruit of our union, in the church were it all began. Part of celebrating our anniversary is going to Mass there on the day just Michael and I, in thanksgiving for God’s guidance and bringing us together.

<<cringing with embarrassment>>

We were not Catholic when we married 14 years ago. We wed in the backyard of some friends of ours, under twin plum trees. I later learned that plum trees are a symbol of fidelity, which is cool, but I didn’t know it at the time.

I wore my grandmother’s wedding dress from 60 years prior—and she had married at home, so it was a lawn party dress, not a wedding dress. I carried no bouquet and wore no veil. My husband wore a new Irish linen shirt, old chinos and a 97-cent sport coat from the Goodwill. I think his shoes—wingtips—also came from there.

We walked out into the backyard together (my parents rejected my husband from the first), where 50 or so of our friends and family (mostly his) waited. The youth pastor of our church, for whom we both worked, did the ten-minute service, which included vows we wrote ourselves. Two members of my husband’s band sang a Tracy Chapman song ("Deep in My Heart").

We followed with a picnic, complete with build-your-own sandwiches, potato salad and 2-liter bottles of soda. A friend of mine took some snapshots. After lunch, we all drove over to our Assemblies of God church for a cake-and-punch open house reception.

It was all very hippy, I guess. I really can’t regret it because we were doing the best we could at the time. We paid for it all ourselves, and we were dirt poor. We didn’t know marriage was a sacrament—although we knew instinctively that it was something more that a contract between two people.

But it’s embarrassing now. I don’t even want to show our children the wedding video. I want them to understand that the sacredness of Matrimony deserves a sacred location.

The friends who hosted our wedding have long since moved away. I have driven past their former home from time to time. The plum trees are gone. It doesn’t look at all like the place where we were married.

But I suppose our marriage began not there, but in the eyes of the Lord. So it’s okay that I don’t have a physical location on earth to return to.

My husband and I were married at St. Michael’s Church in Convent.  We attend every Christmas Eve Mass with my family, and as I sit in the pew I remember us at the altar.  There are times, when my husband is out of town, when I attend Mass there with my boys and family.  There is a lovely Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes behind the altar.  As a child my family and I would light candles in the Grotto after Mass.  I grew up in that church, celebrated all of my sacraments, and feel at “home” when I am there.  When we were planning the wedding my husband confessed that he always wanted to get married in my church.  Our two boys have been baptized there and our final resting place is there as well.  I love St. Michael’s and all the people who attend Mass there.

We just moved and left the parish where we were married 5 and 1/2 years ago by my brother, who’s a good, solid, JPII priest, and where our 4 children have been baptized.  We are close enough to go back sometimes, but I do miss the church itself just because of all the memories (I can still envision myself walking down the aisle!).  My brother, though, is in a different diocese, so the memories of him providing the sacraments of Matrimony and Baptism are there whenever we see him.

Just wanted to thank all of you for sharing these wonderful stories.  I hope we here more of them!  I also wanted to say that I concur 100% with Kristine who rightly stated that the building really shouldn’t matter.  I have that same feeling, but have to confess to really loving this particular Church.  My own home parish is very dark and “unpretty” but lights up each Sunday thanks to our wonderful priests and my fabulous parish community.

After a year and more of working with Lisa, she and other friends know how much I lift up the sacrament of marriage for those I marry and those already married. Short story: The first wedding I performed as a deacon—At the beginning, I brought the couple up onto the stairs turning them to face their family and friends and I took the floor level in front of them… I gave them a quick “it’ll be great” smile and then I turned to face the attendees… I looked at the father of the bride and he was crying—and so, big softy that I am—I started crying… egads… what kind of minister is this? True story! Blessings all brides and grooms. Prayers. deacon tom

I’ll be getting married next July 4th and the church building had a big impact in where we have decided to get married. I didn’t want to do it in my home parish partly because it would be harder on friends and family to get there, but also because it’s a mammoth of a church seating 1500 people “in the round.” My 200 guests (if every single invited person comes) will look piddling in that setting. We chose a very historic German church in the town we hope to put roots down in. It’s a gorgeous church with a steeple and tons of stained glass and a traditional cross shape. We had only attended Mass there a few times before we made the decision to marry there but have since jumped into being catechists and making friends in a young adult Bible study. Every time I come in, I feel reverence and awe in the presence of God, which is what it should feel like I think. We hope to stay parishoners for a long time, but even if we leave someday, I know I will treasure coming back to a church that has been there almost 200 years.

Wow, this brings back wonderful memories from college.  I also spent most of my mass time at my dorm’s mass, but I have wonderful memories of Easter mass at the Basilica. 

I’m glad you enjoyed your visit back.  I only live in Chicago, but I haven’t been back in a couple of years and am dying to go back. 

We live about 45 minutes from the church where we were married.  It was our parish when we got married and was until last year when we moved.  This Saturday is our fifth anniversary and I have been trying to figure out how to make it special.  Now I’m going to suggest to my husband that we go down to our old church.  Our 10 month old daughter has never been there, so it would be wonderful to go there with her.

The church we were married in closed about 2 months after our wedding so that the new, modern, larger church that had been built could open. Both churches are on the same piece of property, but it makes me sad that we can no longer attend mass in the church in which we were married - now it’s a “meeting hall.” To boot, the new church is, in my opinion, lackluster and has lost the sense of the Holy. Yes, we needed a bigger church (especially since most of the masses were being conducted in the school gym), but why must every new church these days be so MODERNE?

Sparki,
Show your kids your wedding video and be proud. Sounds like you made a desicion that only you could make at that time. You’re a maverick! Enjoy your status and let your kids know what you did because you knew their Dad was the only one for you.
From one who’s been there-Rachel

Misspelled decision..need to go to bed!

We were married 20 years ago in the church I grew up in, a beautiful church built in 1904.  I was Lutheran at the time, but we had the Lutheran minister and a Catholic priest who was a good friend of ours co-celebrate the wedding.  I like that we were married in a church where I had so much history - I was baptized in that church as were most of my siblings, I was there every Sunday until I went away to college, as well as years of church dinners, vacation Bible school, choir rehearsals, youth group, funerals of people who mattered in my life.  We no longer live in that area, but visited there all through the years when we were back home.  Then last Thanksgiving we were there for my mother’s funeral.  Whenever we are there I can feel all the layers of memories from all the years.