I’m so excited to finally share the first of our wedding photos. I originally wasn’t planning to share photos from the ceremony but our photographers (Ann & Kam Photo) did such an incredible job capturing some very special moments in the Church so I had to share. I also thought I’d talk a little bit about our ceremony and our decision to get married in the Catholic Church. I want to start by saying in no way am I trying to convince anyone to get married in the Catholic Church or any church for that matter. I just wanted to share what I learned in making this decision and the process of planning our ceremony.
The decision to get married in the Catholic Church was one of the more difficult & touchy decisions. Ryan and I both come from religious families but neither of us have practiced our faith religiously (for lack of a better term) in recent years. When we first got engaged we both agreed we would definitely not get married in a church. I hadn’t felt a connection to the Catholic Church in a while and we wanted to be able to have full control over our ceremony. I wanted to walk down the aisle to an Ellie Goulding song, we didn’t think we would find any readings that we could connect with and we wanted to say our own vows. Many of the weddings I’ve been to recently had such personal touches during the ceremony that made me feel so much more connected to the couple and I wanted the same on our big day.
However, as I started to get a better idea of what the day was going to look and I felt like something was missing. I realized that even though I didn’t feel incredibly connected to the Church at this point in my life, I am still a religious/spiritual person and my faith has gotten me through some of the most difficult times in my life. I also started to feel like I was turning the ceremony into a big show instead of focusing on the real purpose of the most important part of the day. We eventually decided to get married at St. Michaels of Old Town and a priest from Ryan and I’s childhood, Fr. Britto, agreed to officiate our ceremony. We were excited because we knew he would help make our ceremony a little more personal and have some great jokes up his sleeve.
We ended up having six meetings with Fr. Britto as we prepared for the big day and it was one of the greatest gifts I could have received going into married life. I felt like I was able to rediscover a connection to my faith on level that I could actually understand and implement in my day to day life and marriage. While I still don’t go to church regularly, the process helped me find a stronger connection to my faith and most importantly it really helped Ryan and establish a foundation for our marriage. I wanted to share a few of my favorite tidbits that we learned from Fr. Britto that I think can be applied to any relationship and marriage regardless of religion/spiritual beliefs.
Marriage is a partnership between two equals but just because two things are equal doesn’t mean they should be the same.
Spend more time admiring and appreciating each other. For every 1 negative thing you do/say to one another, do/say 5 positive things.
Faithful love is not just staying together, it’s growing together.
Learn to love foolishly – give more than you receive.
When it comes to conflict, at the end of the day it is better to love more than it is to win more.
At the end of the day, what I learned through this process is that regardless of your spiritual/religious beliefs, planning a wedding ceremony is about building a foundation for your marriage with your significant other. Whether that process involves meeting with a priest and picking readings from the bible or watching old romance movies and picking lyrics from the worlds greatest love songs, that should be 100% up to you and your love!
